Here are a few photos I shot the other day while taking a break from working on the Reynold's Corliss. The Economy pictured below is not a rare or valuable engine but it is one of my favorites. It belonged to my old buddy and mentor, Al Kingsley. When Al died a year ago, I got the chance to buy it from his heirs. As you can see, it is not restored and is a bit on the crusty side! Still, it runs real good and I think I will leave it just the way it is. There is no shortage of engines with beautiful paint jobs, but you don't see a lot with moss growing on them.....

Here is a general shot of the engine, as you can tell it is a later one with the Wico EK magneto. Al said that his dad bought the engine new in September of 1927. A lot of folks say that it must be a Hercules because of the shape of the opening in the water hopper. While engines with the oval shape are often Hercs, this one is pretty late and still has bits of red paint on it. Al said that it was an Economy, and when Al said something, he knew what he was talking about. Furthermore, Glenn Karch, the noted and highly respected authority on Hercules engines, confirms this.

Here is a shot of the base. Note that the fuel filler is made up of pipe fittings instead of the usual hinged filler. Al said that this was original as far as he knew, but I will have to see what Glenn Karch says about it.

For those folks who like serial numbers, here it is! 

This is the other side, obviously. The muffler was removed and lost in the forties. Al said that the oiler did not feed well when it got cold outside, so his dad removed the muffler and put a coupla elbows and a length of pipe on it so that the warm exhaust would blow onto the oiler, and heat the oil up so that it would feed better. If you look really close, you can see two holes drilled in the top of the hopper. Al said that there was a tin gaurd in there when it was new, to keep the water from sloshing out. He took it out because he liked to leave the crank in the hopper when the engine was idle, otherwise the crank would get lost.

What do you do when you have an engine running and a camera in hand? You take pictures, here is another one. Not real exciting, but there it is.

As long as I had the camera out, here is a pic of my Cushman Truckster. It is a former metermaid vehicle, we took the nerdy cab off and tinkered it up. The little bugger really goes, I have had her wound up to 45 mph several times and ran out of nerve, realizing that, if I wiped out, there would not be much left of me to clean up! It has a custom dual exhaust on it, made from two Cub Cadet mufflers and really sounds good when you wind her up. It saves me a lot of steps at the showgrounds and is very popular with my buddies who know that the key is always in it and that they are welcome to use it.

Another shot of the Cushman. I am going to get myself in trouble with this thing one of these days......

The G-man (Paulie Grotophorst) 's F Oil Pull, a one cylinder jobbie with ignitor ignition. Way cool, when you hear one run, you will never forget it. It really shakes a lot when it is running, rocking back and forth a bit. As neat as it is to use, I would rather eat a cup of dirt than run it all day plowing. I am no tractor guy, but this one is just a big gas engine on wheels, so I don't think running it makes me a FATG, at least that is my story.

The G-man's little Rumely L. they restored it around 30 years ago and it is getting tired enough looking that it looks like a good original. It is a pretty nice running tractor and is a handy way to do little odd jobs in style. It sat for around 20 years until I talked Bill Klemm into hijacking it. It didn't take us long to get it fired up (ten minutes) and haul it out to the showgrounds. The G-man was pretty pleased that we got it out of the shed and I notice that it is getting run a lot lately.....

That is it for now, will take some more photos one of these days.

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