What I did for awhile when I stopped picking up phones.

[Jester]

I have always been fascinated with mechanical things.  I can remember watching my dad from the time I recall remembering anything accomplish everything from repairing/ rebuilding the car to assembling plastic model kits & thinking "I can do that, too".  So, in the fall of 2001, I bid on my last phone auction and bid on my first really old air cooled small engine.  It was a Briggs & Stratton model 5S built about 1950.  After about an hour of tinkering, I had it running-- and was hooked!  The company reminds me a little of Western Electric--  they built a state-of-the-art-product by sticking with solid engineering & not straying too far from their basic standard designs.
Take the example below.  This is the oldest B&S engine I have right now-- a 1/2 HP model FH built in mid 1926.  This engine is the fifth major design improvement on a model series begun in 1920 & was built longer & in more numbers than any other F series variant (over 133,000 between 1925 through 1933).  Notice the overhead valve design with external pushrod on the exhaust assy. and atmospheric intake valve (open by the vacuum developed when the piston moved downward on stroke 1).  Also note the bronze carb. & large diameter cast iron flywheel on the pto side.  These two features were changed @ 1929.  Engines after this date had diecast carbs. &  a stamped steel cup that the gov. assy. mounted in.

[McHeath]

Good looking old engine.  I don't own anything that classic, my oldest small engine would be about 40 years old and is just a 3.5 horse Briggs on a Wards edger.  Once in a while we see old engines at fairs or such, and I always think about how that would be fun to have one of. 

[foots]

That thing is cool. The only small engines I have are a 650cc twin cylinder from a '56 BSA Road Rocket, and a 500cc single from a '72 BSA Victor. Both are on the back burner, and by back burner I mean way to the back.

[HobieSport]

I like that 1928 air cooled engine and that's a fairly decent excuse for not picking up any more phones. The exposed overhead spark plug is especially enticing.

However:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z302bHUMokA

[Jester]

Those are very nice, Matt.  I have never been tempted to buy a guitar-- the closest I've come to playing one was having to teach a "sampler" class at the middle school five years ago.  I guess I should mention that I am a classically trained violinist with a music ed. degree & I'm in my eleventh year of employment as a string orchestra teacher in our local school district.  I really enjoy a well played guitar & have owned my share of Chet Atkins & Jerry Reed albums, but haven't had the urge to play one personally.  I used the engines as my form of stress relief.  I used to tell people at the local engine shows I've attended that "they're easier to keep in tune than a beginning string class"!

[Jester]

I've never shot video of any of my engines running, but it looks & sounds alot like this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrgojgq3yfQ&feature=related

[HobieSport]

Whoops! I appolgize Jester, because I actually didn't mean to post that guitar picking video on this thread; it was meant for another thread on another forum. Silly me.   But now I'm glad that that I made that mistake, because we just learned that you are a classical violinist and music teacher among other things.  So as much as I'd like to discuss music, I'll try to keep on topic here about good old engines.

I remember a few good old Briggs and Stratton engines from childhood in the early 1960s.  It seemed like every lawnmower-type engine was a "Monkey Ward's B & S" in those days, and as I recall, that's the first type of engine were my Dad showed me how to carefully do a "top end job" and grind the valves and change the piston rings.

Then my older brother got a "Z engine".  Are you familiar with those? It was huge and heavy with lot's of cast iron parts, and clunky and about one horsepower with oodles of torque. I think it was from an old farm agricultural pump system in the Salinas Valley. It had a big cast iron flywheel with a folding handle to crank-start it, and once it was running, it would chug away like a good old work horse, and you could hear every time the piston fired. It was a good early education in how basic engines work.

Then I got a Honda 50 "cub" motorcycle when I was twelve. Now there was a good little engine that I wish I still had. Foots; my older brother worked on a couple of BSA motorcycle engines, and they were indeed impressive.

Nowadays my lawn-tractor engine is once again a 20 horse Briggs and Stratton. Full circle I guess.

Now... about the string orchestra...

[Jester]

I am familiar with the "Z" engines, Matt.  They were made by Fairbanks Morse, a very old name in stationary power.  From what I remember of the one HP I saw a few years ago, they were squat, mostly square and had about a 12" dia. by 2" flywheel.  And yes, with that much rotating mass, they had GOBS of torque at only 550 rpm.  All the 1 HP were throttle governed, as I recall.  Irrigation pumps, pony starters for bigger engines & running generators for rural light plants were all jobs this little engine can handle.  I've been to a few engine shows where this size engine was used to operate a 20 gal. icecream freezer.

[Greg G.]

I've never shot video of any of my engines running, but it looks & sounds alot like this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrgojgq3yfQ&feature=related

Dumb question - What does the little engine that could, do?

[HobieSport]

Those Briggs and Stratton engines seem like they used to run everything, from lawnmowers to generators, you name it. In the early 1970s my Dad and I built a house in an area with no electricity. Not being able to afford a generator, we hooked up our B & S lawnmower engine to our table saw. Dad would cut the wood while I stood by and ran the throttle with a pull string and return spring.

[Jester]

What does the little engine that could, do?

These were originally used to power rural washing machines.  Although not as well known as the Maytag Multimotor, these engines were popular in their day with washer manufacturers who wanted to sell their products in areas that did not have electricity.  A drawback with this engine design is the open valve train on top of the head.  Already a tall engine, extra clearance was needed to ensure nothing interfered with the exposed moving parts.  These parts also needed to be frequently oiled manually, which could expose the wash to oil & dirt.  And, since these parts were uncovered, they could be affected by water & soap.  Later designs intended for washers were L head engines with the sparkplug mounted on the side of the head & not on top of it, which took care of parts oiling, contamination concerns and clearance issues.  Most of these engines that were mounted to washers had a flexible steel hose screwed into the exhaust port with the muffler on the other end so the machine could be used on the porch, with the exhaust directed away from it through the tube.  My engine is just a running display right now, used at engine shows to demonstrate how these old things sound and work.

[Bill]

I went to an antique engine show recently, and there were a whole bunch of the old hit-and-miss engines. (These predate the throttle-governed Z-engine, not to mention the B&S engines mentioned.) If you are an old engine enthusiast, you know that the hit-and-miss engine is a 4-cycle engine that operates at approximately constant RPM. To maintain constant RPM, not every stroke is a power stroke. When there is no load, the cylinder will fire once, and then the flywheel carries the engine through several revolutions without another power stroke.  When the RPMs drop enough, there is another power stroke. Of course as you add load, the RPMs drop faster so there are more frequent power strokes. When fully loaded, every stroke is a power stroke. The whole thing is self-regulated - there is no throttle.

Hit-and-miss engines were made in an enormous range of sizes, from small lawnmower engines (and tiny working models that are much smaller than that) to huge stationary power-plant engines. At the show I mentioned, most of them were simply sitting on a a flatbed trailer for demonstrations, but one guy had one hooked up to a working shingle mill, and another guy was driving around the grounds in a two-person go-kart that was powered by a hit-and-miss engine.

This is late-1800's technology. I think that the ingenuity shown in the invention and construction of these things is amazing. I love 'em.

Bill

[HobieSport]

Thanks Bill;

I wasn't an old engine enthusiast but now I am nearly convinced. You had me on pre-throttle and Z-engines.

So does the engine only fire when power is drawn/needed? How does it know when more power is requested?

Sorry for my simple questions.

[Jester]

Matt,

I think this link answers your questions better than I can over the 'net regarding hit & miss governed engines.  There are some nicely restored engines on this site, too-- check 'em out!

http://www.oldengineshed.com/groups.html#HitnMiss