9056 Riverside Drive Brighton, Ml 48116
Strike! That’s what we did on September 1,1989. This
isn’t always the best way to start a month, and being a member
of United Steelworkers Local 1900, it brings back memories of other
strikes I’ve participated in that lasted from one day to 17
weeks over the last 22 years.
But this time, I had the opportunity to pursue my relatively new
hobby-old engines on a full time schedule.
First, we had more shows to attend and not having to be at the
mill all the time, we made four and five day trips out of them. I
still had to arrange for my ‘picket duty’ on the off days,
but somehow managed! We were having a ball, as long as the money
holds out! (We don’t get unemployment or anything else when out
on strike.)
By the end of September the shows had run out and we had to
conserve what money was left! (I got carried away and bought
several pieces during September.) We couldn’t afford to travel
too far for the remaining shows!
So it was time to work on the newest acquisitions. The 6 HP
early style Sta-Rite was done in a few days, as was the 4 HP
International Famous screen cooled on nine foot skids.
I don’t paint original pieces any more, just clean (no
scraping), and oil them down. I’m really pleased with the
results and get many compliments on them!
Next was the 10 HP Stickney. First was to build some heavy
skids, complete with metal bands to protect the underside of the
side rails. I opted for skids instead of a cart to lower the center
of gravity of the unit because I haul my engines on a flat bed
truck.
Then to get it running. The engine was very stiff, even after
loosening the bearing caps. I unhooked the connecting rod and
removed piston and rod from the head end! Wow! I’ve worked on
12 HP farm engines, before but this piston was 17′ long! I
cleaned everything up and freed the rings this helped
tremendously!
The intake valve was a bit of a challenge but was soon conquered
and everything was reassembled on that end. The cam box on the
other end was in need of freeing up and a tad of weld! The old girl
took off and ran, and is expecting to see some of you folks this
summer at a couple of our regular shows. By now the weather was
turning on us, so I decided to warm up the shop and get down to
some model building.
I built a pair of 1/3 scale Associated
igniter models first, but was looking for something a little more
challenging. Now you may recall the article I wrote a while back on
restoring a Polo engine for Ken and Wendy Wolf. Well, I still had
the photos of the original one worked from on that job, so, why
not?
First I chucked up another one of those 200 pound blocks of cast
iron and started whittling. I used flywheels from another headless
Witte and here is the most glaring difference from the original,
which had 5 spokes.
Everything progressed rather well until I had to fabricate the
forge blower type fan used for cooling. This one component was the
most challenging. I made it from a bar of cast iron, 3?’ in
diameter, solid. I shaped the outside to suit myself, using two
gussets to support the shaft bearings instead of the original’s
one. Then I split it in half on the band saw and hollowed it
out.
I wish I had written down some of the measurements for the
original one, but then, that might have complicated things a bit
more. This way I just made parts that looked as close to the
original’s as I could, and said ‘good enough!’
The finished product looks pretty good to me, but I guess maybe
I’m just biased. We’ll have to see what the rest of the
engine world has to say about it, but I think they’ll agree.
They’ll get a chance to see it at Portland this summer.
Oh yeah, I’m back to work, strike is over and we were only
out for 101 days this time! Too bad it couldn’t have happened
during the prime show season! I could have really enjoyed that, as
long as the money held out!