For you gearheads and car guys out there................................

[The Slab Bacon]

Just FWIW If it runs off of an engine, I have most likely had my hands in it. I have had a fascination with engines since I was a young child, and somewhere in my life I have probably operated it, or repaired one for someone else. I was known years ago for having the ability to make unusable engines run again. It's too much to type, but I have some really kool experiences and stories to tell.

This is fodder for a good long running on-air QSO    

[KL7OF]

When I was in high school, 1964, I had a 125 Jawa....an unusual bike then....It was a road bike with a stamped steel frame,full fenders with flares,big full coverage chain guard and a 125 2 stroke engine...Those were the days when honda had a full line of 4 stroke bikes like the from the nifty, thrifty honda fifty..to the (my favorite at the time 305 scrambler)  I used to ride around with a bunch of farm kids...and we visualized ourselves as a motorcycle gang....It was kind of tough being a Rebel without a cause because most of us had to be home before dark to get our chores done...Our gang included a 160 scrambler,a couple honda 90's a 125 yamaha street bike,my 125 Jawa, and a black 305 dream owned by a town kid named Paul....We let Paul hang with us because he had the biggest bike and it gave the gang more presence...Through the years I've owned a few little hondas...The S-90 was my favorite, a 250 scrambler that I bought wrecked and fixed up,a 350 honda that was always hard to start, a couple triumphs...a worn out 500, and the best bike I ever owned, a 650 triumph Bonneville..There have been a couple flathead Harleys, one was a war surplus 45 that had a hole in the piston...My brother and I cut the skirts off a piston from a 6 cyl chev stovebolt engine and used that to get it running...The cable for the distributor advance was missing so we would just adjust it by hand to get it smoothed out.(that was probably the reason the piston got holed in the first place running it with the spark set on full detonation) I have a couple XS 650s hiding in the shop now waiting for me to restore one and make a hardtail street bobber out of the other.. Never owned a crotch rocket, don't want to....Last winter the wife and I were lucky enough to be able to ride around Florida on my son-in-laws new 1300 V twin Yammie bagger for a month..A nice bike, but not loud enough and the rev limiter sucks....The Harleys always won at the stoplight contests....Got to ride an Indian Chief this Fall....Very cool...an original 40's bike with foot clutch and jockey shifter...Hard to think about bikes right now with the temp at 10 deg and a foot of snow on the ground...Never owned a sno-go

[WA1GFZ]

I got the disease from my Dad. He tested Jet motors at P&W. He would tells us when he was going to fire up a big one. We could hear him from the back yard 10 miles away. He always came home with cool stories. He blew up two that I know about. A B52 motor JT3 and a JT8. He said the turbing dropped out of the JT8 and hit the ground spinning. He worked outside for about 10 years away from the main building where they could really have fun.
He also spent WW2 and Korea well under deck.

[KL7OF]

We haven,t touched on outboards......

[The Slab Bacon]

Had 1957 250CC Jawa!! 250cc long stroke single 2-stroker. Had dual pipes and dual plugs. Was a pretty interesting bike, a lot of torque for a 2-stroke. That one had pressed steel body panels over a tube frame. The body panels got tossed and it became a dirt bike. that model later evolved into the 250 "Californian" I still have the parts manual!! The last of the left over parts just got tossed 2 months ago while cleaning out my mom's basement!!

Had a 63 T-120 (wish I still had it) After busting a piston racing a Sportster one night, it got an 800cc Routt kit. For it's time it was Hell on wheels!!

Also had an S-90, 2 150s, a 160 with a big bore kit, 2 305s and a 1967 CB-450.

Not to mention  125 Benelli,  125 Gilera, 250 Ducati (which became a flat tracker), and more that I cant remember.

also have a 250 Puch awaiting restoration. (it runs but looks fugly)

I think it would be fun to build a retro flat tracker out of an XS-650, If I find a deal on one, I may still do it. (I like the old days when you weren't allowed to have brakes!!)

Between what I have owned myself, and what I have worked on for others, I've pretty well got it covered...........................
 

[The Slab Bacon]

Oh, yea, While I'm in the process of cleaning out my mom's house there is still one mystery area I havent touched. It is the enclosed area under the back porch.

The door has been closed and locked for very close to 30 years. It was mostly my stuff under there. And I flat out dont remember what is in there. I do knowthere is some bike stuff and engine stuff in there, but that is all that I remember. The key has been lost for at least 25 years, I'll save that for warmer WX..................

[WA1GFZ]

When I was living in LA my Dad had a flood in the basement. Water came in through a crack in my old shack floor. I had been out of the house for 5 years but still had some treasures stashed in his basement. He found my Arma Steel 389 crank under the oil tank and tossed it. He later told me he thought I was over the building motor phase of life. I was really bummed. Best poncho crank made.

[KC2TAU]

I think I remember seeing a Jawa in a motorcycle spares/scrap yard last year. They're really neat looking bikes and I kept bothering my friend to buy it and restore it. I have a 1972 Honda CB350 and a 1965 Honda C100 cub. The C100 was my fathers and he acquired it when he was back in college and one of his fraternity brothers left it at the house and never came back to claim it. I was surprised that my father has hung onto it all of these years. It's a great bike as it always starts and if it doesn't there is usually a very simple reason why it won't(no fuel,ignition not on,etc).

The 350 had a worn cylinder which caused it to burn a fair bit of oil though it still ran fine. My friend and I spent from 7pm to 7am rebuilding the engine and were a bit shocked that it ran as well as it did as the chain tensioner gear was so worn that it was a small miracle that the chain didn't skip a tooth. I still need to figure out some electrical problems with it,I'm very tempted to just convert it to electronic ignition but the kit for it costs more than I paid for the bike.

[KM1H]

Watching F-14's launching fom the USS Carl Vinson in 84 gave me a woody; I was aboard for 2 weeks. Or maybe it was all the porn flicks in the Chiefs quarters

Never cared for jet dragsters but watching Garlits or any of his competitors in a fuel hemi also made the hormones boil.

Best sound at idle: A full race cammed (ancient terminology) flathead V-8; with those siamese exhaust ports it is a totally unique sound. Even a milder grind can sound good.

[WA1GFZ]

I love F14s. I saw one do a hammerhead stall and drive out verticially at the last P&W air show. They packed a lot of fire power.
I remember a story that the F111/F14 motor oil sumps ran dry if it flew upside down. My Dad told me they tested the fix over East Hartford one day while all the big shots watched their watches.

[kb3ouk]

all this talk of engines and other stuff like that cinvinced me to make a post(and hope that it doesn't turn out too long). it made me woder why there was not too much talk about Carroll Shelby though, that's one person i like to hear about, because thats who i was named after. and jet engines, i was at Andrews on armed forces day back in 2008 when they have the air show there, some of that stuff was pretty impressive, i liked the F-104 starfighters and the engines in them, can remember the model but the announcer said they were built before they had smokeless jet engines. even if you couldnt se them you could tell where they were by following the smoke trail. i remember seeing an old P-51 there too. found this video of a Merlin V12 out of a Mustang and now in a 55 chevy on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIj2GVfua84

something else i always thought sounded nice were truck engines, living by the turnpike you hear a lot of them. i can always pick out an older detroit from the rest of them. i think probably the best souding diesels.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfyIeO6zQBM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7368eCCwr6A

and talking about older car engines, i remember hearing a kid at my school talking about these earlier this year, the gmc 702 v12
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puJaDfB4UFM&feature=related

and finally tractors, something ive always liked, especially if they are one of these 4 makes John Deere, Oliver, Allis-Chalmers, or Minneapolis-Moline. i think the old olivers with the detroit diesels in them are the best that company made.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNKoCfOyASU&feature=related
nothing can beat the sound of a two cylinder john deere especialy the model D. they started out in 1923 with a 465 ci engine and in 1927 increased it  to 501 ci by making the bore .25 inches bigger , to 6.75 by 7.00.

[kb3ouk]

heres a video of a Dhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQLpTI_HZ_U&feature=related
and last, in the earlier parts of this thread someone mentioned the Funk Brothers V8 conversions for ford tractors, especially the 8N i was at the Nittany antique machinery association's show in centre hall this fall when they had ford as the feature tractor there were probably 1 or 2 dozen of those V8 powered fords there various conversion kits and some that the owners build themselves. but the best one was a lincoln v12 powered one, which is in this video, i got to seee this tractor in person, but didnt hear it run, so was amazed when i found this and heard it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xOb_s1lQ78

shelby

[W2VW]

all this talk of engines and other stuff like that cinvinced me to make a post(and hope that it doesn't turn out too long). it made me woder why there was not too much talk about Carroll Shelby though, that's one person i like to hear about, because thats who i was named after.by 7.00.

Wasn't Shelby told to stop racing cars by his doc due to a bad heart almost 50 years ago?

[kb3ouk]

yes he did, he had heart problems when he was a child
he was also a flight instructor and test pilot in the army air corps during world war two

Wasn't Shelby told to stop racing cars by his doc due to a bad heart almost 50 years ago?

[The Slab Bacon]

Shelby,
          Thanks for all of the U-tube links!! I watched them all and a good many of the suggestions that they also throw at you as well. Being the Engine lover that I am, I spent close to 3 hours on U-Tube!!     

[KB1IAW]

We haven,t touched on outboards......

At the opposite end of the spectrum.  I picked up this little British Seagull last winter as part of a package deal with a pair of older 15hp OMC outboards. I had to replace a cracked fuel line banjo fitting and clean the carburetor of old residue then it fired right up. The carburetor is an interesting bit of engineering. The throttle control, rather than the typical butterfly valve, has a spring loaded piston to regulate fuel flow. Doing speed trials with the 9' RIB I was hitting top speeds of 2 knots, 3 with a decent tail wind.  Having a Seagull hanging off the rail was a great conversation starter. I usually heard heard: "Wow an old Seagull. I used to have one of those." Or: "A Seagull, those things really suck." 

[The Slab Bacon]

Well, lets see.........................................

I was going to go off on that tangent, but..................................  

I've owned 3 Evinrude Zephyrs over the years (4.9HP - 4 cylinder)
one rather large Johnson opposed twin (I dont remember the model)
5 or 6 little eggbeaters that I just dont remember makes and models.
One that had an all brass cylinder barrel, and one that actually had the engine down at the bottom (under water) and breathed through the stalk!!
(You sometimes stumble on them down here as part of antique engine deals)

I sold all of that stuff about 15 years ago, but I may still have a few pieces lurking under my moms porch. Getting in there is gonna be like Christmas all over again.

[The Slab Bacon]

I guess I'm out of my league with those 'spark plug thingies'

Most of my toys have Rootes blowers and injectors....

73DG

Hmmmmm..............................................
I just found videos of this truck on youtube??   "Pissed off Pete"    

[kb3ouk]

that thing has a 12V-71 in it, not sure if if also has twin turbos like some of them do, that would make it a 12V-71TT. I was just thinking this morning about the engines in the two Minneapolis-Moline Z tractors we have. It's a 4 cylinder engine, with two blocks. The head is mounted on the side of the engine, and if you take it off and look across you are looking straight into the valves, and on the side of the blocks on that side are covers that come off to allow acess to the valves. The crankcase is really deep in these, because it also forms most of the frame, which only consists of the front end which is bolted to the front of the crankcase, then the transmission and rear end bolted to the back. The crankcase has removeable covers on one side to allow access to the crankshaft. If you needed to tear it apart you had to undo the rods from the crank, then anbolt the blocks and lift them off with the pistons still in there, then the crank pulled out through the front. If one of them would have got locked up, it'd be almost impossible to get it unstuck since nothing comes off the top of the block so that you can beat the pistons out. http://www.antiquefarming.com/minneapolis-moline.html
It says here that the heads can be altered to change the compression  for burning other types of fuel in it.

[Fred k2dx]

I got this in an email several days ago. http://www.fark.com/cgi/vidplayer.pl?IDLink=5734912

[K7LYF]

If you enjoy the sound of an engine pretty much up against the limiter, go here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=4TshFWSsrn8&vq=medium#t=35

enjoy

mike