S. St. Paul, Minnesota 55075
My name is William Knack and I am a subscriber to Gas Engine
Magazine. I enjoy reading the magazine, especially the stories
where an old engine or tractor is brought back from the grave and
restored to life again. Wish there were more stories like that!
I and Ted Knack, my son, and his family, restored a 65 Case
steam engine and now I have restored 5 gas engines.
My son, Billy Knack and I have restored two 1926 model T Fords
and we turned a 54-passenger bus into a motor home.
I am 77-years-old and this is my hobby. I have a story.
It all started when I wrote a letter to my cousin, Emil Langer
Jr., at Fargo, North Dakota about picking up old gas engines and
restoring them. He wrote me back and said, ‘why not come up and
pick up our old engine. It is on the farm at Alice, North Dakota by
my sister Sadie Hartle’s farm.’
I wrote my cousin Sadie and asked about the old 3 H.P. Fuller
and Johnson gas engine.
Sadie wrote back and said, ‘Yes, it is laying on the scrap
iron pile in the tree claim. It has been there for at least 15
years.’
So that got my blood pressure a little high so I wanted to get
the history on this engine. I saw an ad in the magazine so I wrote
a letter to Vern Kinschi of Wisconsin and he sent me the
information I wanted.
The engine was sold to a machinery dealer in Alice, North Dakota
in 1918. It was then sold to my brother-in-law, Emil Langer Sr.,
August 18, 1918.
This engine was then used to pull a grain elevator. My
brother-in-law had a Rumley Advance steam engine and an Avery
separator and always thrashed for 2 or 3 farms. This engine and
elevator went right with the thrashing rig. Then they used the
engine for sawing firewood for the winter.
My brother-in-law then sold the big thrashing rig as it cost to
much to run. He then bought a 15-30 McCormick Deering tractor and a
28-inch Wood Brothers separator. Then they only thrashed for two
farms.
At that time he sent his son, Emil Langer Jr., to the Hanson
Automobile and Tractor School in Fargo, North Dakota, so he would
be able to work on the new 15-30 tractor. Well, a few years passed
and Emil Jr. decided to give it a valve job.
This was during the summer and I always took a weeks vacation
and went to Alice, from St. Paul, Minnesota were I was head
mechanic for Swift & Company Meat Packers.
I arrived after lunch and they were already thrashing. Going out
to the machine and climbing up to meet my brother-in-law, I said,
‘you look worried Emil.’
‘I don’t know what to do. Look at the straw pile. All
the yellow wheat. I tried everything and I don’t know what is
wrong.’
‘Emil, the separator has no action.’ I said.
So I stopped the bundle pitchers from feeding the machine and
the machine started to speed up. I said to Emil that it was his
problem.
‘Let’s go down to the engine.’ I wanted the pitchers
to go ahead again. Going to the tractor I shook hands with Emil Jr.
and said to Emil ‘How come we have no power?’
‘Oh’, he said, ‘It is running fine.’
I said, ‘Come over here and look at the governor; it’s
wide open.’
My brother-in-law said ‘What is wrong?’ So we shut it
off and I took the crank and turned it over. There was no
compression anywhere. My brother-in-law then was a very unhappy
man.
He said, ‘What can we do?’ I asked the kid if he gave
the valves plenty of clearance. He said that he did.
I said, ‘Bring it in tonight and we will tear the heads
off.’
Emil could not take it any more so he threw the belt off at 5
o’clock and ran it by the barn so we could have electric
lights. He had a Delco light plant. The engine was red hot. Emil
Jr. and I worked on it.
He said, ‘I just don’t know what could have gone
wrong.’
Well, we got the heads off and I could plainly see what was
wrong. He had taken the head to a small garage in Chaffie, North
Dakota to reface the valve seats and he never narrowed the seats.
You would say the seats were -inch wide. Then Emil Jr., using a
Model T Ford valve grinder, tried to grind the valves. It did not
do much to do the job, so I used a brace. The intakes were ok. It
took 6 hours to get the exhaust valves to seat right. My
brother-in-law came out and on to bring us cold drinks. We gave the
valves plenty of clearance and were finished by 1 o’clock.
I went out to the thrasher the next morning at 10 o’clock. I
could see by their smiling faces all was going well.
Emil said, ‘I learned more last night then I did at
school.’
In later years my brother-in-law retired and turned the farm
over to his son. Emil Jr. had a sinus problem and could not take
the dust so he moved to Fargo. Then Earnie Langer took over the
farm.
The gas engine and grain elevator was sold or given to Julius
Hartle. He used the engine for several years but the elevator gave
out. The new elevator had a power take off so the engine was not
used and was put in a shed for a while and then was retired on the
old iron pile in the tree claim.
Knowing that the engine was up there, I was not going to lose
any time getting it. I at once started to get my-2 wheel trailer
ready. My brother, Albert, happened to come along. He said,
‘What are you doing, Bill.’ I told him the story about the
engine.
He said, ‘The heck with the trailer. We will take my Chevy
station wagon.’
I said, ‘Good. I will pay the gas.’
That evening I called Sadie and told her Albert and I would be
there for dinner and to pick up the engine. Knowing my cousin
Sadie, she would have a big beef dinner waiting for us, which she
did. We got there at 11 o’clock. We had dinner first and then
Julius Hartle said, ‘Well, shall we go get the engine?’ I
said, ‘Yes, by all means.’ He had it dug out of the iron
pile, and had it loaded on the front end of his tractor. The engine
was all rust and everything was stuck and frozen and about as dirty
as it could be.
In the picture of us by the engine, I am in the middle, Sadie is
to my right, Julius Hartle is on my left. We loaded it and took off
for Fargo to Emil Langer’s place where we stayed overnight.
Next morning we took off for home. We stopped and dropped the
engine off at my son Billy’s in St. Paul, Minnesota. This is
where we do all our work. My son is night foreman at Aerio Presion
Engineering Co.
Next we took the engine apart to get the dirt out. The water
hopper was full of dirt. We freed the stuck parts as we took them
off. We painted it as we started to put it back together. We
started on it in the fall and finished it in the spring.
Now came the big moment. We hooked up the gas line and a coil
and battery. We turned it over three times and it was running. We
all had big smiles on our faces. It needed a few adjustments. We
had it done in time to put in the show (the Lehart Friedrich Steam
and Gas Thrashing Show on his farm two miles from Lake Elmo). I had
many compliments on my engine.
My cousin came down to visit and I showed the engine and ran it.
They could not believe it! What labor and know how can do!
I hope so you all will enjoy reading this, as it is true.
