October/November 1992
Dave Brown
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Right view of the Petter engine.
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13813 Travois Trail, Parker, Colorado 80134
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My love for antique engines really got started when my wife of
two days, Tammy, and I were on our honeymoon in Victoria, British
Columbia, in April of 1985. While there, we went through the Museum
of Natural History and I noticed a small engine in the mining
display. I immediately made my interest in this device known, and
suggested to Tammy that we start looking around for an old engine
to purchase.
A day later, we entered an antique shop south of Duncan, B.C.
and inquired of the proprietor if he had any old engines. He led me
outside and showed me a behemoth which I could see was a little
impractical from a transportation aspect. Then he led me into one
of his sheds and showed me a nice British made Petter 'S'
type, 5 HP, oil engine. It was stuck but with minimal pressure on
the flywheels, I was able to get it to turn. As we left, I was
thinking furiously about it but Tammy and I had kind of agreed that
it wouldn't do having a 400 pound engine in the back of our
Datsun B-210 for the remainder of our honeymoon on Vancouver
Island.
As our honeymoon wound down, we made a stop by my folks on the
way home. Naturally, I had not forgotten about the Petter engine so
I told my dad about it. His reaction was basically, if we
weren't going to go pick it up, he was! After discussing the
issue with Tammy, we found ourselves on the ferry back to Vancouver
Island to go pick the Petter up.
We finally arrived back at Duncan and after a little negotiating
with the store proprietor (which he won), we backed the B-210 back
up to the shed. The proprietor and I lifted the engine into the
back after I removed the hatchback. I was having a hard time even
lifting my end of the engine off the ground, while he had hold of
the other flywheel and was almost lifting the whole thing himself
with one arm! I obviously didn't eat as much Wheaties as this
guy did.
We then started for the border in our Datsun which looked like
we had removed the rear wheels and which issued a few sparks from
the rear end as we went down the road. After being grilled by the
border police for about a half hour, and a bit more of a drive, we
made it home to our brand new house in North Bend, Washington, with
my new treasure (and bride).
Upon disassembly, I noticed that the crankpin and bearing was
shot along with one of the mains. One of the air intake valves
(it's a two-cycle diesel) was also destroyed. There was a
section of the water jacket which had broken out. The rings,
naturally, needed replacing. The glow plug was rusted out. After
spending a while to see if there were any parts available, which I
came up dry on, I contacted a shop in Seattle to resurface the
crank and remanufacture the bearings. The cost on that was greater
than the purchase price of the engine!
Then I had another shop custom build the new set of rings. I
fixed the section of the water jacket that had been broken out. I
obtained a piece of sheet titanium to replace the air valve which
had rusted out. The fuel pump took about two weeks by itself to
free up and get in operational condition.
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