Route 1, Box 303, Arbuckle, California 95912.
My interest in collecting old engines and farm machinery is more
than protecting them from the cutting torch and blast furnaces. I
am reminiscing with the past. My father had an old iron wheel
Farmall F-12. I remember him cranking, for what seemed hours to me.
If he could not get it started he would take out the spark plugs,
hold a match over the holes and as he turned the engine it would
suck in the flame to dry out the cylinders. Sooner or later it
would start. He also had a small pump engine he used to pump water
with it. That was in the thirties. We later moved to California and
I ended up in the farming business here. I leased a ranch and there
was an old 1-1/2 H.P. John Deere engine used years ago to pump
water with on the ranch. When our son, Mike, saw it, he started
tinkering with it and had it running in an hour. A good friend of
mine, Cliff Hardy of Woodland, told me about the EDGE & T.A.
and what good fun we could have as a family, collecting and showing
engines. We are now members of Branch 6 and 13 and have met many
new friends.
Many hours and dollars are spent finding and bringing home these
engines, but I consider it as a family affair and every penny well
spent. An example is the following; Cliff Hardy has a 25 H.P.
Fairbanks Morse Y diesel and a 40 H.P. F.B.M.N. That 40 horse has a
12′ piston and 18′ stroke. I have climbed up on the spokes
and helped him start it many times. I just had to have a large
engine, so one summer we started looking. We headed for the Sierra
Mountains East of Sacramento where many of these large engines ran
donkey winches during gold mining days. After about six trips into
country unbelievably beautiful and on roads hardly passable, we met
a man who bought a ball mill and engine from an old mine in Nevada.
He said he only wanted the mill and I could have the engine.
Cliff Hardy of Woodland, California standing behind a 60 HP
Cooper-Bessemer. His 25 HP Fairbanks Y and 40 HP Fairbanks N are in
the background. Courtesy of W. C. Maupin, Route 1, Box 303,
Arbuckle, California 95912
The following weekend, we collected hand drawn maps, county
maps, state maps and headed 300 miles to find a small canyon in the
desert hills of Nevada. After arriving in Lovelock, we located our
road and started into the desert. In about two hours, we found not
one, but three canyons and neither had an engine. We returned to
town and that evening I talked to an old timer who knew about that
mine and engine and a new map was drawn. We headed out again the
next morning and by – noon as we drove up a wash, smashing in one
fender with a rock and other chugger type incidents, we came upon
the biggest, most beautiful engine a man could want. It was a
Cooper-Bessemer 60 H.P. diesel. We spent the rest of the week there
taking off small parts and getting the engine ready to bring home.
Things don’t work out as planned all times, so I told Cliff
Hardy about it and he made two trips to look it over. He made
arrangements for a large truck wrecker to move it. Cliff took his
truck and they headed out to the mine to load it. It was two heavy
for one trip so they brought home the 6 foot flywheels and
crankshaft. Another trip was necessary for the base and other
parts. With weather and other delays, it took two years to find and
get the big brute home. That engine sets with his other large
engines and makes a sharp blast as if it were new. How many miles
were traveled and money spent finding and bringing this engine
home? I don’t know, but it was worth every penny. Many man
hours of friends and family working together has unknown value. I
am sure many ‘chuggers’ have been through similar
experiences. This was just one of mine and I loved every
minute.
Late summer of 1974 I loaded my New Holland, tent, and family
into the pickup and went to the Great Oregon Steam-Up. That was our
first participation in any large affair as that. I have never met
any more friendly and accommodating people anywhere. In fact, Tom
Graves, a member of their group saw me on the highway, waved at me
to follow him and he led me right into the grounds. That is real
friendliness. They had many gas engines of all makes and ages, a
Rider-Erickson 8 inch hot air engine, steam engines of all
descriptions and all types of separators and equipment. One of the
rarest tractors was a Samson Iron Horse tractor pulling a corn
binder. The operator knew how to handle it, too. He pulled on the
ropes and made it act just like a team of horses prancing around.
He put on quite a show with it. Many working models that took
untold man hours to build were showing their ‘stuff’ along
with the others.
Another interesting facet of collecting is the ‘old
timers’ and their stories. Just a few words of knowledgeable
encouragement to get them started and you can listen for hours. The
man I got my Samson from is 91 years old and still runs a
rototiller in his garden. We must have talked at least six hours
before we got around to making a trade for the engine, and that
took another 2 hours.
I always ask the people if they want to see the engine run again
after I get it restored. Some are interested in seeing them painted
up and running and others say ‘Shucks no, I seen that thing all
I wanted to around here, just take it and get!’
I really enjoy some of the kids in their teens, when they first
see some of these engines. They know what makes a V-8 run with all
the high-lift cams and other performance parts of an engine but
they are somewhat stumped at how something as simple as these
‘old pieces of junk’ can run. The poppet value and ignitors
really amuse them. But once they start tinkering with them, they
are usually ‘hooked.’
I always have something at home to work on. The first thing my
son does, when he and his wife come to visit us, is to pull on a
flywheel or grab a tractor crank. He must have plowed a two acre
plot in front of my house at least six times with a McCormick 10-20
and old plow I have.
We like to paint them and restore them like original. Then we
like to work them and play with them and show them. It seems to me
they also have ‘feelings’ and like to run and perform for
us.
That is why at least four things are necessary to be a
collector. First and most important of all is the patience and
understanding of a loving wife. (Bless mine for her endurance.)
Second, is a place for the brutes, close neighbors sometimes
complain when you fire them up early Sunday morning. Third, is the
desire to bow your back, skin your knuckles, call for help, get
grease on your Sunday overalls, drink lots of lemonade,
‘let’ your wife shine the brass and wipe the paint off your
shoes when you finish painting. Fourth is patience; have a little
heart to heart talk with your engine. Tell her you have oiled her
rusty joints, cleaned the carbon from her head and throat and make
her believe she is young again. Feed her a little fuel, give her
some water, give her a spark to bring her to life, even some paint
will cheer her up. Don’t beat on her, don’t swear at her,
just have patience and she will perform for you.
