18490 W. Church Road, Howard City, Michigan 49329
In the March issue of GEM you ran an article on the Riverbend
Steam and Gas Show, written by Rick Gelder of Byron Center,
Michigan. I would like to add to the article about the 1921 300 HP
Buckeye 5 cylinder diesel engine mentioned within the article.
I found it in a growth of woods where it had laid for
approximately the last 35 years. The owner was going to power his
sawmill with it but never got around to doing it. He died about
four years ago. I tried to buy it for 30 years from him but he
wouldn’t sell it. After he died I bought it from his wife. The
generator had been destroyed by vandals about a week before I
bought it.
Very little information is available pertaining to it.
It has a cubic inch displacement of 2,180. It turns 415 rpm.
I’m guessing it’s 300 HP. It is a direct injected engine.
It holds 50 gallons of oil. It has three valves per cylinder,
individual cylinder heads and a three-piece connecting rod. The
lobes on the camshaft can be unbolted and taken off. It has roller
valve lifters and individual injector pumps. It ‘ starts cold
immediately. It was supposed to crank with air, but I used a pony
motor (which is also a diesel). At the time I restored it, I
couldn’t find parts to rebuild the injectors. I only had one
that would work so, I built it up as a one cylinder engine.
Afterward, I found parts to rebuild the rest of the injectors.
I had fun restoring it and showing it. It was too heavy for me
to haul on my trailer, and Del Vanden Bosch wanted it, so I sold it
to him in 1997. He brought it back to me last week to finish it so
it will run on all five cylinders. He got some parts for it but I
will have to make some of them.
