35640 Avenue F, Yucaipa, California 92399
When I was a young lad during those golden days on the farm, a
group of some 20 farmers went in on shares and purchased a Case
20-40 two-cylindered opposed type gas tractor and a companion 28-50
separator. These fine agricultural instruments were delivered by
our good Mr. Jack Kadinger who now resides near Sioux Falls, South
Dakota. In the era of open-type drive gearing, I still believe that
was one of the very best tractors that was ever built. A very was
building fine two and four-cylindered opposed engines, but
hamstrung themselves with about the most ridiculous (sliding frame)
transmission that one could possible conceive of. -All to save one
intermediate gear; which idea was wrong to begin with since a pair
of spur gears can be properly cut only to mesh between themselves.
The root becomes dislodged if one of a pair of such gears is
brought into an improper mesh with another gear of differing pitch
diameter than that of the paired original design. One of my
brother-in-laws nearly met disaster when descending a good grade
with an Avery 40-80 and the frame slid forward out of mesh. And
were they bugaboos to handle in the belt!
At that time, one of the most popular other tractors of that
rating was the Oil Pull. In the large models (as in the Case 30-60
also) the engines had a 360-degree two-throw crankshaft, which
allowed of a more smooth power flow and also a straight
longitudinal vibration. However, in the smaller sizes the Rumely
builders for some reason went to the 1800-degree crankshaft. The
carburetion advantages were the same, as a short downdraft was
achieved for both cylinders; but this design entailed a severe
cross-vibration such that many owners experienced trouble with the
Tim-ken bearings in the front wheels through not keeping them
properly adjusted. So, when I became afflicted with the engine bug
again some 14 years ago, I considered myself fortunate in finding
an old M-20-35 Oil Pull in the junk yard in Spokane, Washington.
This specimen I immediately bargained for, and now it sits in my
back yard and is called upon now and then to perform some little
task. Immediately after finding this old girl, I ran across a
sister engine in the junk yard in Pullman, Washington. The latter
engine was equipped with angle grouters, which I would have
preferred to the spade lugs on the wheels and extensions of my
cherished possession. On my little old lady, someone had removed
the magneto, put several wrinkles in her fenders, discarded the
foot brake and other small items, and, apparently- what had caused
her near demise- her former owner must never have looked to the
lubricating oil in the separately enclosed governor housing. For I
was to discover that not only was this reservoir plumb long since
dried up, but the lack of oil had caused the governor shaft to
seize and become twisted off. Doubtless some farmer must have had a
fast final ride before getting her shut off, and it is somewhat of
a wonder that things did not begin flying to pieces.
My first chore after getting the old M delivered to my home at
that time in Tacoma, was to rig up an automobile distributor
(grinding off all but the two necessary cams) and get her into
operation, with battery ignition. Then it was steam cleaning and
finally painting, until she ‘shone like new.’ Then a friend
gave me an old Edison-Splitdorf magneto, and I was able to dispense
with the battery for a few months until the mag went real sick in
its old age. After trying a few other mags, and moving the engine
to my present home, I secured an American Bosch four-terminal
magneto ; upon which I fixed two spark gaps on the extra terminals,
and so far this seems to be doing nicely.
Oh yes, the water tank had long since rusted away, I suppose.
And since kerosene or distillate was difficult to obtain, and the
engine would not be placed back into full agricultural service
anyway, it became of advantage to simply operate on straight
gasoline. Actually, the gasoline of today is probably inferior to
the kerosene of yesteryear. Of course, there is the problem of
detonation and more rapid burning without water, but if one can
tolerate the slight diminishment in output power, a good remedy is
to set the spark back to about ten degrees BTC. This puts it into
the class of other tractors which were built to operate on
gasoline, like the old Case mentioned earlier. And since this model
does not have the crankcase vent back into the intake system, there
can never be any fear from intake backfires. I can vouch that the
power output is still adequate, since an instance of hauling long
green eucalyptus logs up out of a ditch nearby, the old girl could
spin her rear wheels right into the ground if tied down to a
standstill.
Now this latter piece of work posed another problem, and if the
fool-killer had not been taking his day off I can assure you that I
might not now be writing this article. You see, I was backing up to
the very edge of a 30-foot embankment of some 60 degrees standing,
and tying onto those trees of about 25 feet in length and 24 inches
in diameter, with 40 feet of log chain. Well, after hauling in the
last of a dozen such very heavy green fellows, I proceeded to put
the old girl back under the canopy. And I just made it, for upon
the last clutch disengagement, the throw out yoke slid over the
worn sleeve engagement! Had this happened while attempting to stop
in reverse at the very edge of the embankment, likely the whole
works of us would have had the fastest ride ever in her life down
that embankment. So we come to the crux of this story and one which
elicited a few new swear words from my capacious vocabulary. No
matter how good the mechanic, he had always best consult the
owner’s manual before attempting to make repairs on such design
of clutch. But no manual was available, and only through the medium
of this fine magazine did I find a great help in the kindly
assistance and Xeroxing of some manual pages from such book in the
possession of a greatly esteemed friend, Mr. Donald Robbins of
Troy, Ohio, who has one of the Super Oil Pulls at work in a sawmill
operation. And because this is pretty heavy work without good shop
equipment for such undertaking, I put off the job long as I
could.
But finally I ‘got the spirit’ and began tackling the
job. Now right at the outset, I want to castigate M. Rumely and his
whole force for ever having undertaken to design this clutch layout
such that it becomes necessary to take off all the primary gearing
(transmission) cover in order to not only slide off the primary
drive pinion but all the rest of the hostage apparatus used to
disengage the clutch faces FROM THE INSIDE! Good heavens- it is
exactly as easy to have designed the throw out mechanism from the
outside, similar to the old shoe-type clutches. And in the latter
instance the throw out could be disassembled without disturbing
another element. The only difference being that the inside
disengagement looks a bit neater from the exterior. It was
considered very advantageous to design machinery from the
accessibility-for-repair standpoint in days of old, whereas
nowadays it is designed for a serviceman’s dream with all
special tools. And, to add insult to injury, these primary gears,
having the highest tooth engagement speed in the line, were not
even to include a hunting tooth in the larger gear, which would
have made no difference of concern in torque but would have
eliminated the peculiarities of special gear fitting at the factory
for such things as even two-to-one reduction, etc. I did recall
that some good chap through the columns of this magazine cautioned
about re-meshing these gears tooth-for-tooth during such repair or
overhaul. But by this time my unassisted patience (or lack of it)
caused me to slam her right back together catch-as-catch-can, with
the consequence that her gear howl can be heard for a good half
mile in spite of a good dose of molylube. Oh, well, she will come
back in, eventually.
One of the things that stressed my aging patience was that,
while I had good luck with welding a cast steel ring (made from an
old timing gear) onto the throw out sleeve, I did not meet with
such success in the case of the collar. This latter I attempted to
build up with an arc job and return to dimensions. But the nickel I
used against the casting turned out to become so hard that neither
I nor any other shop around could wish to tackle the job. I finally
secured a carbide cutting tool for the little old Sears 10-inch
lathe and finally cut out the built-up shoulders and then proceeded
to continue undercutting. Then two steel rings were turned out,
split, and welded into the recessed grooves. Upon reassembly, the
clutch now works very smoothly and I do hope never to have to
disassemble it again-ever -ever!!!
One other item that ‘steamed’ me up a bit about the
design of this old girl was that the oil coolant circulating pump
was not only mounted in an inaccessible position for gland
repacking, but the mounting casting incorporated a trough-like cast
section which provided for no drainage of any leakage past the
packing gland. And since there was no packing on the drive shaft
side from the camshaft gear housing, it allowed any leakage to run
undetected right down into the crank-case. Now, there is no
sight-level for the crankcase oil level, so it is quite difficult
to ascertain just what is going on in the crankcase on a day-to-day
basis. Consequently, I procured a long-shank 3/8 inch drill and
bored a vent hole in the bottom section of the pump mounting
bracket. This will afford a visible means of pump packing leakage
and also keep any such leakage (as I had experienced) out of the
crankcase. It does appear strange that this fault should have been
overlooked in the engineering design of this series of engines.
Now, after all this, the old spark plugs began cutting out, as
though they did not deserve to in relic status. The old plugs were
of an extended design of nearly 1-1/2 inches beyond the skirt. This
type of plug is necessary in a head design having such deep plug
wells, if the engine is to fire regularly under low compression
while idling. And that is one thing she did- never missed a pop
when standing at a very low speed. I had rebuilt the governor using
Caterpillar weights, and this resulted in a very sensitive
response, even to causing an extra strong impulse on but a single
cylinder when traversing a big of uneven ground. This I like, as
she stays right on the rpm regardless. But back to the plugs.
I just about exhausted the Pacific Coast distributors for a
long-shank 7/8 SAE plug, but the old cross-references and
catalogings now available indicate a Champion W-16 or thereabouts
for the job. This is a standard short-shank (non-extending) plug,
and will not fire this engine properly while idling. Even my good
friend’s manual back in Ohio apparently makes no reference to
recommended spark plugs. But finally a Good Samaritan came through
with a very close dandy- a Champion W-89-D, with a 3/4′
extension below the skirt. There is nothing more distracting than
to have a gas engine irregularly misfiring on idling, regardless of
the number of cylinders or type of crank throw. And if they are of
good compression, proper carburetion and hot spark, they will not
let out an occasional mis-pop. My old girl never did before, and
now she is back into good mettle again. Some operators are of the
opinion that, because of the ‘peculiar’ one-two firing of
such two-cylindered 180-degree crank shafted engines, this entails
an occasional misfiring on number 2. But let us consider why there
is no engineering reason for such behavior. Figure one is a sketch
to display the intake and power events in such engine. From tracing
through by the respective sequential strokes, it will be seen that
2 has already received its intake charge before number 1 has even
fired to cause a momentary speedup in flywheel momentum if the
governor is that sensitive! And since number 2 has had equal
opportunity with number 1 to receive equal charge, it can hardly
dodge putting out an equal power impulse- providing, of course,
that this second cylinder has a spark equal to that of the first
cylinder. A very close friend of mine operates the Grand Terrace
Tractor Company and he handles many John Deere engines along with
Ford-Ferguson. If he ever had a John Deere that let out a single
miss-pop it would drive him to getting it right out of there
yesterday-like. These John Deeres are similar to the old Rumelys
about which I have been carping all this time.
At the time I was working for Case at Racine, the good old
stack-draft heavy girls were just beginning to move over for the
high-speed lightweights, and I dreaded to see the old timers go,
for they certainly never wore out. Some of them put on rubber would
make a pretty good engine today, and have saved more than one
farmer from going bankrupt through mortgaging against
automobile-type tractors. The crawlers are the only boys who stayed
with it!
If either cylinder should be starved through throttling, it
should appear to be number 1! Actually, because of no venturi in
Oil Pull mixers, either cylinder is prone to miss. Feel the exhaust
manifolds if one cylinder is persistent.
Thermoil 7 HP, #M74 engine shown by Dave Herbst, of near
Sacramento, Cal. at the Galt, California National Early Day Gas
Engine & Tractor Association in June 1975. Dave also had a 6 HP
Samson #4450 in nice running shape. Courtesy of Howard E. Shideler,
2803 E. Highway 120, Manteca, California 95336.
National Meet of EDGTA at Galt, California – The belt driven
four inch rock crusher, shown by Jim Johnson of Turlock, Cal. was
built by the Joshua Hendy Iron Works of San Francisco. The rock
crusher was originally used to crush ore at a gold mine in
Coulterville. At the other end of the belt is Gary Crows, Sterling
Gas Engine. Courtesy of Howard E. Shideler, 2803 E. Highway 120,
Manteca, California 95336.
40 HP Superior gas engine, #40101. This engine has a Dixie #235
magneto, McCord lubricator, side shaft and flyball governor. Shown
at National EDGTA Show at Galt, California by Norman Taunton.
Courtesy of Howard E. Shideler, 2803 E. Highway 120, Manteca,
California 95336.
An Alamo 2-1/2 HP, 500 R.P.M. Percy Goesch and Hank Barboza in
the background are concentrating on solving the problems of the
world, or at least of Branch 6. Courtesy of Howard E. Shideler,
2803 E. Highway 120, Manteca, California 95336
Lots of belts in action at Galt, Cal. June National Show of
EDGTA. This is doing double duty with a grinder at one end and pump
jack driven by Monitor 1-1/4 HP, 500 R.P.M., #24216. Shown by Glee
C. Berry, Salinas, California. Courtesy of Howard E. Shideler, 2803
E. Highway 120, Manteca, California 95336.
Pictured is Lester [Silver King] Rosenthal on his 1939 Silver
King tractor. In the winter and spring of 74-75, he completely
overhauled and restored this tractor to mint condition. Courtesy of
Larry Schuknecht, 5408 Genesee Street, Lancaster, New York
14086.
Lester Rosenthal and his son, Bruce, starting a 4 HP headless
Witte engine. Courtesy of Larry Schuknecht, 5408 Genesee Street,
Lancaster, New York 14086.
80 HP, 150 R.P.M., Serial #913, Bessemer gas engine manufactured
in Grove City, Pennsylvania, owned and shown by Bottimore Ranch,
Herald, California. 16′ bore by 20′ stroke. 4022 cubic inch
displacement. This is a real show piece that formerly worked in a
brick and tile plant in Coffeyville, Kansas. This engine starts on
120 lb. pressure. [At National EDGTA show at Galt, California in
June 1975. Courtesy of Howard E. Shideler, 2803 E. Highway 120,
Manteca, California 95336.
Cliff Hardy of Woodland, California always comes up with some
real smooth running showy engines, but this is the best yet. This
is a 16 HP Standard marine gas engine that was formerly owned by
the Oakland Telephone Co. It was a lobby display and kept for
emergency power. An unusual feature is the electric starter by
German Bosch, also has Schebler carburetor, McCord oiler, lots of
polished brass and nickel plated parts. In addition to showing at
all gas engine meets, Cliff also exhibits at most Northern
California Fairs. He never gets tired of showing his engines, at
least he hasn’t admitted it yet. EDGTA show in June at Galt.
Courtesy of Howard E. Shideler, 2803 E. Highway 120, Manteca,
California 95336.
Monitor Type H.J., 8 HP, 350 R.P.M. #19856, shown by Harry
Hurlburt, 10653 Ambassador Drive, Rancho Cordova, California. The
belt driven pump is a Gould positive pressure pump that was found
on the Pavia Ranch at Diamond Springs, California. The entire
outfit is painted blue, so it really looks good and sounds
wonderful. EDGTA Show at Galt. Courtesy of Howard E. Shideler, 2803
E. Highway 120, Manteca California 95336.
My three ‘Keller’ engines I have restored. They are
1-1/2, 3 and 5 HP. The engines were manufactured from 1908 to 1919
by the Bloomer Mfg. Co., Bloomer, Wisconsin. While restoring the
engines I found the original color under the brass name plate and
was relieved to find out that they were not green in color, but a
nice shade of maroon. I would like to correspond with anyone having
‘Keller’ engines, as there aren’t too many of them
around here, even though they were made about fifteen miles from
here. I have been collecting gas engines about four years and I
really enjoy G.E.M. Courtesy of Thomas W. Enderson, Route 1, Jim
Falls, Wisconsin 54748.
Some engines on truck bed- 1. t. r. 12 HP Witte Diesel, 7 HP
Ward’s Sattley, 7 HP Galloway, 1-1/2 HP Little Jumbo, 1-1/2 HP
I.H.C. Courtesy of Myron Achterhof, Hammond, Wisconsin 54015.
My 20 HP Cushman, Serial Number 344, purchased new in 1912. Lots
of power for sawing wood.
Engines 1. to r. – 3 HP Fuller & Johnson, 1 HP Tom Thumb and
a 4 HP Fuller & Johnson.
