Interesting engine

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Darth Vader

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• Jun 13, 2004

• #1

I attended a show this weekend put on by the Maine Antique Power Association (of which I'm a member) and saw an interesting engine. Both its vintage and its use surprised me.

It's an opposed 2 cylinder, OHV, air cooled engine. Any guesses as to what it is? Don't be fooled by the flywheels of the engine sitting behind it.

 

H

hottvr

Jedi Warrior

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• Jun 14, 2004

• #2

Log splitter?!

 

Sherlock

Yoda

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• Jun 14, 2004

• #3

I can't even begin to identify it, but judging by how you described I'd guess some sort of engine from an old European micro car and/or smaller car.

Last September at the big Barrie Automotive Flea Market in Ontario, my friend purchased an engine set up for stationary use but was obviously an automotive engine. It was obviously from some sort of (probably) European micro car. He set it up at his vendors booth and had people guessing all weekend and as I recall the best guess by the end of the weekend was a Lloyd Alexander engine. Anyway... the comment came up several times from people that there were kits back in the 1960's to convert the engines from many of the European micro cars into stationary engines. Sorry, never got a picture of the engine...

 

T

ThomP

Jedi Warrior

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• Jun 14, 2004

• #4

We have an APA chapter here too. I have seen "cane squeezers", washing machines, corn huskers, you name it, powered by 1 and 2 "lungers", but I don't recall seeing anything with air cooling fins as shown in your picture. I would suspect that the engine you show is somewhat more modern than others at that APA meet. Use? How about a Plow?

 

OP

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Darth Vader

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• Jun 14, 2004

• #5

No one was even close, but neither was I when I saw it. It's a truck engine from a 1907 International. This appears to be the first year International made trucks - the vehicle itself looked more like a heavy wagon than a truck.

I think it looks pretty advanced for an almost 100 year old piece of machinery. It's not totally original - the owner uses modern spark plugs via adapters, for example. I don't know much about it but it appears to weigh about 900 lbs and I'd guess the output is about 25 horsepower.

 

T

ThomP

Jedi Warrior

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• Jun 14, 2004

• #6

And I was thinking that thing was a late 40s, early 50s design. Only off by 40 years!

 

Patton

Jedi Warrior

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• Jun 14, 2004

• #7

You answered your own question too fast, I know a guy who has two International Highwheelers with the same motor.

 

OP

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Darth Vader

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• Jun 14, 2004

• #8

[ QUOTE ]
You answered your own question too fast...

[/ QUOTE ]
I didn't want people to lose sleep over it two nights in a row.

 

78Z

Darth Vader

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• Jun 15, 2004

• #9

very interesting! Thanks for sharing. I love the really old stuff - so raw somehow with the bits exposed.

The Reynolds museum in northern Albertra has a turn of the century Cadillac motor on display that you can crank over with a handle. Amazing to see in motion!

 

aeronca65t

Great Pumpkin

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• Jun 15, 2004

• #10

As you may know, I love old engines....the weirder, the better.
I saw this while I was away and didn't have time to resond, but I would have guessed that it was a boat engine, partly due to the updraft carb and huge flywheel. I was thinking that an aircooled boat engine might have fit in with your clue (the surprising use).
Anyway, it does look pretty modern (OHV). Looks like a fuel primer cup near the spark plug. Those coils are modern and I would guess that it's running a total-loss battery ignition system (no mag). I got a chance to see a aircraft engine with exposed rocker arms not too long ago (at Rheinbeck). One of the mechanics told me that they "always oil the rocker arms before flight......or else!".

 

OP

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Darth Vader

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• Jun 15, 2004

• #11

Nial, I'm sure you're right about the ignition system.

Your response caused me to try to recall any purpose-designed air-cooled boat engines at all. Air cooled outboards are common in some parts of the world but I don't think the engine itself was designed for boat use - ditto air and ice boats with aircraft or VW engines. Sears had an air cooled outboard once but I think it had a Clinton engine.

All that nice cool water is hard to resist for an engine designer, I guess.

I found it interesting that this engine had hairpin valve springs. Most of the stationary power of the era used fairly weak coil springs. I'm not sure why they would have done this. Any ideas?

 

aeronca65t

Great Pumpkin

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• Jun 16, 2004

• #12

Many of the engines in the old days had weak intake springs (whether coil or hairspring) because they were "atmospheric" (in other words, the intake valve was sucked open by the vacuum created by the piston going down....no expensive intake cam). Of course, a 4:1 compression ratio didn't require great exhaust springs either.

As far as preference for hairpin springs: Not sure, but maybe they are easier to change without disassembly of the valve train?

I live on a lake and see lots of weird outboards (I have a 2 HP water cooled Johnson and a 9.9 HP Evinrude). My neighbor had one of those Sears air-cooled outboards. There are some new small outboards built that have air-cooled 4-stokes (such as the OHV Briggs & Stratton engines). I think these have come out to comply with new environmental rules that are cutting back on 2-strokes and the air-cooled feature is just incidental. Bigger 4-strokes (Hondas, etc) are water-cooled.

 

W

William

Darth Vader

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• Jun 16, 2004

• #13

Hairpin valve springs used to be popular in bike engines, especially those with exposed valve gear. Their bulk compared to coil springs made them difficult to pack underneath valve covers. They weren't popular at all in automobiles, and by the postwar years weren't in use at all, with few notable exceptions (Vanwall's first self designed engine, for starters). Problems with hairpin springs generally started with any surface imperfections in the spring itself. This usually caused a stress fracture. Motor Sport did an article about hairpin valve springs a couple of years ago. If I get a chance I'll see if I can dig it up.
-Wm.
PS- anyone notice that hairpin valve springs do not look much at all like hairpins?

 

OP

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Darth Vader

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• Jun 16, 2004

• #14

Many of the 50's vintage Ferrari SOHC V-12's used hairpin valve springs. I've seen articles that mentioned that early coil springs fatigued more quickly due to harmonics or some kind of secondary vibrations and that hairpins avoided this. I'm not sure they would have recognized this in 1906 or 1907, though.

 

78Z

Darth Vader

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• Jun 17, 2004

• #15

going sligtly off topic here I was wondering if anyone knew why old engines used updraught carbs like the one below? I mean why have the air/gas fight gravity?

 

W

William

Darth Vader

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• Jun 17, 2004

• #16

Wow, that's an old Miller or Offenhauser sprinter engine, isn't it?

As for updraft carbs, I dunno. Maybe to stop excess fuel from leaking down into the intake manifold when the engine's off? I do know that many old racers from the twenties and thirties, like Millers and Deusenbergs, had updrafts with velocity stacks that pointed straight down and stuck out under the chassis rails. Right where you would want them in order to suck up dirt and rocks.

-Wm.

 

78Z

Darth Vader

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• Jun 18, 2004

• #17

[ QUOTE ]
Wow, that's an old Miller or Offenhauser sprinter engine, isn't it?

As for updraft carbs, I dunno. Maybe to stop excess fuel from leaking down into the intake manifold when the engine's off? I do know that many old racers from the twenties and thirties, like Millers and Deusenbergs, had updrafts with velocity stacks that pointed straight down and stuck out under the chassis rails. Right where you would want them in order to suck up dirt and rocks.

-Wm.

[/ QUOTE ]

Its for a '35 Miller Indy Car project.

Its a 255 ci 4-Cylinder and produces around 260 hp.

 

Roger

Luke Skywalker

Bronze

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• Jun 18, 2004

• #18

[ QUOTE ]
going slightly off topic here I was wondering if anyone knew why old engines used updraught carbs like the one below? I mean why have the air/gas fight gravity?

Though it would not apply to this engine, most early vehicles had gravity or other uncertain means of fuel delivery, so the lower the float chamber (or carburetor reservoir) the better. And where the fuel is, there are the jets and choke!

 

K

Ken G

Jedi Hopeful

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• Jun 21, 2004

• #19

On updraft carburettors, as in my 1925 Rover, yes, I think the gravity feed of the fuel, either directly from a tank or from a pump reservoir (vacuum operated in my case) meant there was a benefit to having the float chamber low down. Incidentally, surely the weight of the air is negligible, so up-draft or down-draft makes absolutely no difference to air flow.

However, having the float chamber below the level of the inlet manifold doesn't prevent flooding through leakage of the needle valve. If I park and forget to turn off the faucet between the reservoir and the carburettor, the needle valve leaks slowly, the level in the float chamber rises, and fuel collects in the jet, flooding the engine the moment any air passes through the carburettor.

Ken G, 1925 Rover 16/50 (San Francisco)

 

78Z

Darth Vader

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• Jun 21, 2004

• #20

makes sense. Thanks Roger and Ken /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cheers.gif