R.D. #6, Box 6369 Stroudsburg, Pa., 18360
This picture was taken at the Blue Mountain Antique Gas and
Steam Engine Show, Bangor, Pennsylvania, at the October, 1987 show.
They hold a show in July and October every year.
I found this engine 200 miles from where I live, in Potter
County, Pennsylvania. A friend of mine in Potter County, whom I had
bought an engine from, said he knew a lady with an engine. Her
husband had passed away, and maybe if I would go to see her she
might want to sell the engine.
So I went to see her. She said she didn’t know if she wanted
to sell it or not as she was sentimental about it. But, she agreed
to let me see it.
Well, I went out to her garage, back in a dark corner, covered
up with junk was the engine. I had a flashlight with me but it was
so dark I really couldn’t tell what shape it was in. No
decision was made and a year went by.
In the meantime, another friend of mine stopped in to see her
and she told him to ‘tell Mr. Haney when he comes up to stop
and see me, I think maybe I’ll sell him the engine’. Well,
we got together on a price and I bought it.
When I got it outside, I found it was an Eclipse made by Mydrick
Company of Olean, New York and it had a low serial number of 405,
which made me happy. But, I also saw it had no carburetion system
on it at all.
I had to start from scratch, with restoring it. I made three
intake manifolds before I finally got it working right. It knocked
so badly. So I had to tear it apart again. The rod is brass and it
was worn egg-shaped.
I don’t know what I would have done if it hadn’t been
for a good friend, George Sebring of Sebring’s Power House in
Stroudsburg, Pa., who runs a machine shop. He made me a new wrist
pin and put a sleeve in it which was quite a job. I really
appreciated it very much. Also the guys who worked with me at P.H.,
they’re always ready to help me when they can, so I got it back
together again and it runs like a charm.
I wanted to get it painted and ready for the October show, so I
had to work right up to the night before the show. I had the clutch
pulley to put on yet and I was having a lot of trouble getting it
on. So I went to the house and asked my wife if she would come out
and help hold it to get it started. She was holding it and I hit it
using a block of wood and hammer. The second I hit the block of
wood, it broke, and I smashed my wife’s finger! I guess you
know what she said about that time!
As you might know, the clutch pulley never was put on that
night. Well, the next morning we headed for the show with my
wife’s finger bandaged up and what a ribbing I took from
everyone that weekend!.
The Mydrick Company also made fan-cooled hot tube upright
engines and I have one of them. They used them a lot on the oil
wells in Western Pennsylvania. The fellows, who know engines better
than I, tell me they have seen the fan cooled hot tube engines but
this was the first water cooled one they had ever seen, and with
such a low serial number (405). Maybe the company didn’t make
very many of them. I have no information at all on this engine and
if there is anyone who has one I would appreciate hearing from
them. As for the colors, I am really not sure. One place I saw
it-it looked like a blue grey and there was a little red in the
corners of the flywheels. So that’s all I had to go by
