I bought a 1917 6 HP Ingeco Worthington Type W at the Tuckahoe Steam & Gas Assn. Show in Easton, Md., in July 2010. Being raised in my father’s shadow at his boat yard, I had been around this type of engine early enough to remember them on board ships for loading and unloading or winching anchors, saw mills and so on.
The Type W was still on its original wagon, but the wagon stayed in Maryland. Overall, the engine had been well taken care of and only had minor wear — but it had a freeze crack the full length of the underside of the cylinder water jacket. To fix this, I ground out a groove the full length of the crack and welded it up with an acetylene torch and brass.
The engine was complete minus a mag, so I installed a Webster Tri-Polar magneto. The crankshaft was showing just a little wear, but I know running round is better than running square, so I had the crank welded, then turned back to standard. The rod journal was perfect.
Setting up the bearings
When I set up my bearings I use a trick my dad taught me back in the late 1940s/early 1950s. I shim the bearing using 30 weight oil, and when the fit feels right I add cup grease and watch them fly. Seems like magic, but it works.
Of course, the valves and guides were worn out — but a couple of Caterpillar valves did the trick. The Caterpillar valve stems are oversized, so all I had to do was open up the guides to fit larger valve stems. The photo above shows the difference in the size of the stem and length. I cut the stems to length and drilled for pins. Being one piece valves and not expensive makes Caterpillar valves very worthy of these old, large engines. The valve heads were the same size as the old valve heads. An easy fix! I do as many of my own repairs and replacements as I can.
Paint
When I stripped everything apart I looked for old paint on the flywheels. On the block and tank I found white paint, but under the ID tag I found red. I had heard the true color was dark green, but I did not find any anywhere, so I went with red with yellow pinstripes.
I used vinyl to assist me in striping. I will say that finding a suitable design was hard because I wanted to be different; not too much, not too skinny, but just right, so as to add to the beauty of the old iron. Besides, I have seen my share of plain Janes and too many engines over-dressed in paint.
Hit-and-miss from throttle
As I am a hit-and-miss engine lover, the throttle governor was a challenge. Late one night, I was readying my 1909 4 HP Economy for a show when the governor caught my eye. Bang! I got the idea to modify the Ingeco’s governor to hit-and-miss in mind right off. I found a complete governor in Pennsylvania, and it was almost too easy, it was so simple. It was no time before I had it all fabricated and working; it only requires one simple spring hookup, and without the spring the engine will not run away. It idles down and stays there.
To make the engine into a hit-and-miss I needed to remove a few things. I removed the long throttle rod and intake butterfly body. The engine will run rich with it in place because the engine was made to run on kerosene. It will do fine on gas with some fine-tuning and full choke. Full choke is for extra slow only. Surprisingly, the engine runs with no black smoke and is still very sensitive to running lean (back-firing will occur). To assist in fuel delivery from the mixer valve, I drilled and tapped a 1/8-inch fine-thread hole in the end of the mixer valve, on the inside. Then I added a 1-inch long 1/8-inch bolt drilled through so as to deliver fuel closer to the intake port on the head. (You can see diagrams of all of Wilbur’s changes in the Image Gallery.) This worked really well. I added a ball check-valve in the fuel line (I recommend its use); depending on what fly weights are used one may have to grind a little clearance on the engine block to clear the swing. Starting is as usual, nothing special.
Now for the good stuff. The engine will run up full throttle and hold at 450 RPM to 500 RPM with only a half turn open on the mixer valve, and will run back down to around 20 RPM between hits. At idle, the engine hits every 10 to 12 seconds, which is slow. I run it at about nine seconds. Any slower and sometimes it will not recover, but it will start right back up. I have always been good at inventing and fixing things.
The governor weights on the Ingeco go in, so I changed them to Fairbanks-Morse C style with notches. From Hit & Miss Enterprises I got a 258B governor weight. With governor weight pins from a F-M 1-1/2 to 6 HP (Hit & Miss 2581) they go out! They make the governor pushrod push instead of pull.
I’ve been collecting for three years. My new project is a 1-3/4 HP hit-and-miss Associated. I have a 1909 4 HP Economy, a 1913 1-3/4 Associated Chore Boy, a 1917 6 HP Ingeco and a 1918 3 HP IHC Type M.
Contact Wilbur “Bud” Taylor at PO Box 2461, Chiefland, FL 32644 • (352) 221-4366
See the Ingeco run at Wilbur Taylor’s Hit-And-Miss Ingeco Type W.
