JV Puleo

By 1917 impulse starters were commonplace. What make mag is it? I've seen a National Archives photo of the testing room at American Bosch for impulse starters. The first impulse starter was patented by Unterberg & Helme (U&H Magneto) about 1908. They called it the "snap starter". I think that the Bosch system of having a separate starting coil, the "Bosch Dual Magneto" with a starting and running position on the switch was a work-around to avoid the U&H patents - U&H did have a US patent on their system. By 1917 that had been accomplished because the U&H patent would not have run out until around 1920-22. Another possibility is that because U&H was a German company, it is likely that all their patents were seized by the Alien Property Custodian when WWI started. That's the genesis of the American Bosch company - the assets of the German company were seized and sold so American Bosch was not the American outlet of the German company. The same thing happened with Bayer Asprin... the American company bought the rights to the name during WWI. I also notice that the crankshaft has balance weights on it. That's a real sign of high quality work. Their value was understood but practically all the makers did without them because it was so much more expensive. It was cheaper to de-tune the engine so it wouldn't over rev...It will be interesting to see if they are forged in one piece with the crank or bolted on. I think the bolted-on type came earlier. I know I've seen them illustrated c1910.

So...it doesn't have ball bearings. That is interesting since I think all the other gas Whites do.

Remembering when I started in the old car world - now more than 40 years ago - virtually no one was in the 20s or 30s or even 40s. I was in my 20s but that was considered VERY unusual and I submit I was probably the youngest brass car owner any of them had ever met. The same can be said for the CCCA Classics...most of the owners were anywhere from their mid 50s to 80s so I don't see any dramatic change taking place. Perhaps the impression of change is created by the increased interest in much later post-war cars which has, for me at least, killed any interest in attending the local shows. The advent of "trailering" cars to shows, and competition for "perfection" hasn't helped either...when pretty much everyone drove to the show there was some incentive to going on the spur of the moment. If you have to own a towing rig, worry about trailer parking and prepare everything in advance attending a show becomes a major undertaking and it's easy to see why many potential enthusiasts can't be bothered. Back in the 70s I stopped at a friend's house one Sunday morning. He happened to mention that there was s show in Brookline, at the Lars Anderson Museum that day so we all piled into my 26 Cadillac and drove to Boston. That doesn't sound like something that would happen now but I remember it as one of the best shows I've ever attended. It was there I saw an unrestored 1911 Locomobile 48 and a similarly unrestored Steven Duryea (about 1910)...both driven in by their owners. Ed Roy was there with his model Simplex's...and I met "Mr. Johnson" the magneto expert who restored mags for George Waterman and had tuned S.F. Edge's car for the Gordon Bennet race in 1905.

About 90% of the problems people have with cone clutches is a result of wear rather than design...the lining is certainly important and I wouldn't use anything but leather but it is also very important that whatever the clutch slides on, usually a bushing in the center that fits over the end of the crankshaft, be in good condition. If is is worn the clutch can tip slightly and it will not engage smoothly no matter what you use for a lining. The Silver Ghost RR had a cone clutch and I've never heard any of the common complaints about it...but it was exceptionally well made. Dynamic balancing wasn't available in 1918 but they did balance clutches statically. If it is in balance, with a good fitting central bushing, it will come out and in perfectly straight. I can see from your photos that you have little spring-loaded plungers to push the facing material out a tiny bit. Those were there to prevent grabbing so it would be a good idea to replace the springs with new ones that have a known spring rate. The amount they push out is not as critical as the requirement that they all be the same. Cone clutches are fine but, like many things on old cars, require adjustments that the vast majority of modern mechanics have never seen.

It looks like a spring-loaded clutch brake designed to slow the clutch down when it is disengaged. That would explain the sacrificial material and the worn grooves but I don't see how it would effect the grabbing issue unless it is too worn and and the clutch is spinning too fast. If that is the case, it might buck when initially engaged but I can't see why it would do so when disengaging.

I haven't been on a "car adventure" for 40 years...this is the next best thing!

There are plenty of people here who can likely identify some of them but you have to post them one at a time...how can we see them clearly if there is another picture obscuring half the car.

I finished the threading...not a difficult job but still it takes time when you have 13 of them to do...the last two can't be done until I've removed the mounting from the frame. I'm not confident I'd measure it perfectly and there is very little room to work with on that one. Next I have to drill them. I started by putting a center hole in each... And then set up the lathe to drill. The hole in the center is 1/8". This is also a tedious job because the holes are about 2-1/2" deep and the last thing you want is to break a drill off . That would effectively ruin the piece as there is no good way to get a broken drill out. The answer is to be very careful and take you time...which will be a lot less than if you destroy one and have to make it over.

Frank, I think you are a sheet metal genius. I'm not sure I would even have attemped to fix that much less succeed.

In between re-plumbing my house, I've been pressing on with the shackle bolts. I now had to trim them to the exact length. I cannon, however use the 5C collets with the stop at the bottom because the 7/8 hex on the bolts will not fit inside the 5C. It will fit inside the old collets that came with the lathe but those have no provision for a stop. In order to put each bolt in the collet so it was protruding exactly the same amount I made a sleeve to go over it, inside the collet. I trimmed one to exactly the length I wanted and set up stops on the late bed. In this way I was able to do the others so that they all came out identical...the bolts for the front springs are 1/4" shorter than those for the rear springs because the rear springs are that much wider. I used the same technique to set the grooving tool to cut the relief for the threads. And repeated the process for the threading. This is the first one. I only finished 3 before I decided to call it a day.

Yes, they are both on the big size for what most "home shop" machinists are looking for but not too big for a garage. To my mind, tiny "bench top" machines are of marginal use unless all you ever work on is very small parts. The lathe, despite it's age (it could be pre-WWI but I suspect about 1918–1925) is infinitely more capable than any of the mid-size Chinese imports although using it will engender a learning curve. You can't use carbide tooling very well on these older machines because the speeds are too low but I've never had a problem with high speed steel and it's much cheaper...it's a situation where none of this stuff is viable from a commercial point of view but that has only made it readily accessible to hobbyists.

This is slightly off topic but may be of interest. If anyone reading this thread in the New England area is thinking about undertaking this sort of work I have a friend who is disposing of some machines. These are in a shop building he owns. The gentleman who operated the shop was a long time friend of his but died unexpectedly. My friend is stuck trying to dispose of the tools so he can rent the building. There is a Reed-Prentice Lathe and a Bridgeport mill. Reed-Prentice was a good machine, much favored by the Navy. I know very little about Bridgeports but this one is not the early "round ram" type. I believe it takes R8 collets which are common as dirt and cheap. The machines are in Upton, Mass and the building does have a loading door. If anyone is interested, send me a PM and I can put you in touch with the owner. His son lives next door so even if he's not available, viewing them is possible. They haven't been advertised anywhere as yet. Although I haven't done it, I believe both could be powered up and they must have single phase motors because the building does not have 3-phase service, although there may be a phase converter...I didn't look but I am certain all the tooling for each machine will go with it. I don't have prices but I know the owner to be very reasonable and realistic. Chances are, any reasonable offer would be readily accepted... Ten or fifteen years ago I'd have been all over this lathe but I have no need, or room for another.

I'll second what Matt says. I was in the mail-order printing business for many years with my late father. He always said that the satisfied customer outnumber the complainers by 10 to one and most of the "complaints" were based on trivialities... I always take adverse comments with a grain of salt unless the person making the complaint mentions something specific and explains what the problem is. That isn't to say all vendors are good - they certainly aren't but the internet is a very poor way of judging. A retired professor friend of mine once said that the internet was "the most effective means of disseminating bad information ever invented."

I think it mostly has to do with the weight. Since they discontinued surface mail it's more and more difficult to buy books from overseas. I will ask the bookseller though...if I buy several I may be able to save a little. What I found was the Proceedings of the Institute of Automobile Engineers. As Greg says, it's probably really dry stuff but I like to feel I've left no stone unturned so I may go for them in any case. Ultimately, if I find only one or two useful bits it will probably be worth it. We should remember that serious engineers read all the material available at the time so even if they pertain to British rather than American cars there may be some useful stuff. The vaue of this early engineering stuff is that it usually tells us how things were made - which is something that is almost never included in the regular "mechanics" books.

Greg, is that "The Proceedings of the Institution of Automobile Engineers". I've found several bound early years - the shipping from the UK is a killer but I may go for them in any case.

No..I haven't seen that one but I'll look for it now. Since I don't watch television I have lots of time for reading. I think I own between 2 and 3 thousand books...most of which I've read. I ran into a problem with the plumbing job I'm doing at home so I decided to come into the shop. The threading is now done... Then I set up my device for drilling (or boring) a hole to a specific depth on the lathe and put a 5/8 ball-end end mill in the quill. This was to put a round-bottom hole in the heads of the bolts. It worked quite well although you can't get a really perfect diameter with an end mill in the lathe. I use ER collets to hold the end mill which works a lot better than a drill chuck but still isn't perfect. For a job like this, where the exact diameter of the hole isn't critical, it works just fine. The bolts still have to be trimmed to the exact proper length and drilled for the grease hole. I'm also going to put little zerk fittings in there - I know they weren't available in 1910 but this is a case where I'd like to be sure I was forcing the grease in.

I've noticed the same thing on the Mitchell as well as several other brass-era cars I've worked on. I suspect that only the very best makers, Pierce, Peerless, Packard, Lozier, Locomobile, etc. really thought about the engineering on EVERY part. They occasionally got it wrong but, generally, the best way to do things was known. There are no bushings in the Mitchell spring eyes...or in the mounts on the chassis or the shackles. Aside from the original bolt I showed, and that my new ones are based on, they used ordinary carriage bolts, a few of which were drilled and had little spring-loaded "holes" that would allow nominal oiling. I have no idea which is original - maybe they both are. In any case, the spring perches on the chassis are very badly worn, the shackles less so but in no case do I see what I'd think of as really good workmanship. This is in contrast to the axles, which look to be very good and show very little wear. The Mitchell chassis used Babbitt metal for bushings everywhere, including places where it was commonly known at the time that it was inappropriate. I can only conclude that it had a life expectancy of four or five years – beyond that, they weren't concerned. I have 3/4 elliptics but I have the same long rods to position the rear axle, one of which is bent. Those will require attention at some point and I will probably make them over with the facility for adjustment. Note: It was Greg that put me on to the PM Heldt book which has been a godsend on this job. Thanks!

I'm anxiously awaiting your return to the Metz project. I suspect that the shop you've put together will make that job far easier. Short of the main castings, you could probably build a Metz from scratch now! There aren't many of us that go to such lengths but the main reason behind my starting this thread was to show that, with patience and a little ingenuity, almost anything is doable. I should add that brass-era cars are the easiest because so many of the parts were designed to be made on the same antique machines we can now find for near scrap value. I don't envy Ed's wrestling with disintegrating pot metal castings and the like. That is an entirely different and, to my mind, more difficult proposition.

This is an extreme example, the valve cages I made years ago. This is one of the jobs I think I may do over some time in the future because I'm so much better at this now than I was when I did them but I won't even consider it until the car is up and running. You can see the original casting (I only had one of them). Reproducing that would have entailed making a pattern and some rather elaborate fixtures to machine it. Also, the Mitchell people didn't use any kind of valve guide bushing so when they wore out, you were pretty much stuck with it. These are exhaust valves but they did the same thing with the intakes...just bored and reamed a hole in the block. Fortunately, the original valves had 1/2" stems so I was able to press bushings into the blocks for the intakes. For the cages, I made screw in valve guides with bushings that can be renewed. I also used bronze valve guide bushings although I now think fine grain cast iron would have been better. On the right you can also see an original valve with the "fix" someone did a long time ago... The little extra spring and retainer you see at the lower right is to hold a thick, oil soaked felt washer, inside the actual valve spring, to act as a valve seal. I've done the same thing for the intake valves. The new valves have a stem diameter of 5/16. The top of the guide and the "barrel" are made of cast iron, necessary in this case because of the heat they will be exposed to. I also made the exhaust holes larger and uniform as I think that may improve the breathing. The Mitchell engine is EOI (Exhsust over Intake) rather than the much more common IOE design. My Model R REO, which was a slightly smaller and less expensive car, had screw in intake guides. I broke one one when getting the car ready for a show the next day and made a new one that evening. It was the first time I'd ever done single-point threading.

Yes. it certainly is. We have to keep in mind that many of the complex parts we see in a completed form were made in more than one piece as a prototype. They are made in one piece because that is more efficient for mass production...it isn't always the best way. It's the cheapest way. But we're not making this stuff to sell - or if we are on a very small scale - so doing it the "hard" way is actually much simpler.

Many years ago I bought a wrecked REO engine from "Mr. Joslyn" of the Joslyn Farm in Exeter, RI. This was in the 70s. I was in my late 20s at the time while Mr. Joslyn was 97. He gave us (myself and the friend who was helping me) a short tour of his private junk yard made up of just about every vehicle he'd ever used on the farm. The rest of the REO was there too...the "hired man blew the engine back in '25" I was told. He was also carrying a 12 gauge shotgun under his arm because, as he said, "people been stealing from me. I catch 'em, I'll put lead to 'em. I'm 97 years old, there ain't much they can do to me now." Among the various vehicles was a brass radiator gas White. At the time, I dismissed it as "just a truck" but now I wonder if it might have been a big touring car turned into a farm truck. It's a bit late now to go back and ask...I don't even know if the farm is still there. Had I know then what I know now I should have bought it. He was perfectly willing to sell things..,he charged me $10 for the engine.

This from PM Heldt's manual of engine design...

There were 3 common ways of doing it. The simplest was just to have two bearings. That is what Chalmers did. Next, ball bearings were used on the ends and a plain bearing in the middle. The elegant solution was a ball bearing in the center. I have seen a diagram of how it was done that I'll see if I can find and post. Something tells me the center journal was larger than the others...but it's best to look and not guess. I wonder if the bearings were American? A little earlier (c.1910-12) they were usually European and in metric sizes. That is why the Chalmers has metric bearings...they weren't made that big in the US at the time.

I finished cutting the reliefs... Then shortened the bolt heads about 1/8" and beveled the front edges. Leaving them ready to thread. I fitted a cap to the first one. By using a dial indicator to measure the depth of cut, I could go on and do the others without having to stop and measure each time. I had to take a long phone call so didn't' quite finish... As I finish each one, I take a cap at random out of the box to make sure it screws on. So far, they all have.

Could you post a picture? I've had both 1910 and 1911 Model R REOs but it was a long time ago. Is it a 4-cylinder car (the one's I'm familiar with) or a 2-cylinder.