Pilot or Davis and McFarland owners

[Guest Xprefix28truck]

Well I must admit that things got much worse today. I am so glad that all the company records were thrown out.....NOT REALLY......Geez.... this is exhausting. Today I saw a 1920 Pilot Automobile that was in the original owners hands until sent to the museum that I saw it in. It is fully restored, and guess what....It has a TH engine in it. It is the same "L" head design as the 1917 Pilot and Auburn used. It even has the letter "H" designation. It looked like it was factory installed. So I doubt that it had ever been changed. The tag for the engine was like no other that I had seen before. It listed the usual things such as, Teetor Hartley Hagerstown Indiana. But unlike the other tags I have seen it also listed "series" and "type" as well as "serial number" all in seperate boxes. If anyone has a tag such as this please let me know what year it is from, as well as what auto manufacturer it is from. I hope Richard and I can get together soon to find out more about Ansteads purchase in 1918. So far this auto goes against anything that has been proven.

__________________

[1912Staver]

Hi Kent, in the Standard Catalogue of American Cars Pilot is listed as using a 6 cyl. 43.5 HP. engine from 1917 to 1921 . This is probably an ALAM. "formula horsepower rating as would have been published in the yearly automobile guide. It is also probable that this indicates the same Teetor engine was used for these 5 years of Pilot automobiles. Pilot production was fairly modest at this time, 1917 is the highest at 928 cars, and 1918 the low at 575 with the others being in between. Perhaps this was considered a steady money maker for Teetor: not so low as to be uneconomical, but not too high so investment in extra equipment would be required. How it fits in with the deal with Anstead is a puzzle. Perhaps Pilot insisted the Teetor name remained on the engines even after the sale; it was after all a fairly well respected name , at least in the Indiana segment of the market.

All the best Greg in Canada

[Guest Xprefix28truck]

Greg,

I don't doubt what you are saying at all. It does seem that this is the case. The only reason I brought it up, is that until yesterday, it hadn't been proven. I looked at the same book yesterday (that you are refering too) and saw the same thing. The problem that I saw is the way it reads, is it also says that Herschell Spillman was used in the later "higher horsepower" models. It always was assumed that once the TH engine business was sold off in 1918, HS was used.

[1912Staver]

Hi Kent, and anyone else interested in the ins and outs of Teetor Hartley. My guess would be the Herschell Spillman engine is the 68 hp. listing for 1922, 23,24. Once again I imagine you have drawn the same conclusion. Anyone else out there with Teetor Hartley information, rumors or guesses?

Best regards, Greg

[Rusty_OToole]

"Earlier TH engines were basically a Continental design"

Are you saying Teetor Hartley engines were Continental clones made by TH using Continental designs and parts? Did they make any engines of their own design?

If the engines are anything to go by Pilot, McFarlan and others using this engine, must have been competing with Pierce Arrow at the top end of the market.

[Guest Xprefix28truck]

Rusty, Continental supplied the rough castings to TH. It was a deal that was initiated when American was looking for engines in late 1907, or early 1908. Continental was at full capacity, and couldn't supply engines to them. But Continental was willing to supply castings if American could find someone to finish machine and assemble them. It appears that TH and Continental were always business associates.

[Guest Xprefix28truck]

I dug up my old post to make a few more changes in case someone is tracking this information.

I received a catalog today that I purchased off Ebay. It is a 1934 Perfect Circle catalog for the ring compressors and expanders. In the listing of what all of them fit is engine data. None of the data listed is older than 1917. Under the Pilot Automobile section, they do in fact, list Teetor Hartley as the engine manufacturer thru 1921. So in fact now there is plenty of data to prove that TH still built engines even after the sale in 1918. I found no other listing for TH, other than the Pilot, after 1918. So it apparently was a limited number of engines.

Below is an update to the list on the previous page. If anyone has any new info to add let me know please.

I show 7 customers that I can verify as engine customers. They are American, Pilot, Empire, McFarlan, Auburn, Davis, and Lexington. Ralph Teetor mentioned several times that Willys was also a customer of engines, but I haven't been able to verify that one.

Here is some other info that I have gathered. I haven't tracked down Davis and Willys engine data yet. Some of this data can be confusing, as this list is by no means complete.

designation, type #cylinders bore stroke #of rings note

AA, ? 4 3 1/4 ? 4

AC, AE ? 4 3 7/8 ? 4

H, H18, H19, 19H ? 6 3 1/2 ? 4

H16 ? 6 3 5 4

N,O, T 4 4 1/2 5 4 (11)

R ? 4 4 ? 4

S17,T17 ? 4 4 1/2 ? 4

T18,T19 ? 4 4 1/2 5 5

X T 4 3 3/4 4 ? (12)

The only difference between the N,O,S17,T17, are the ring thickness sizes.

? T 4 4 3/8 5 ? (1)

T T 6 4 1/2 6 ? (2)

S T 6 4 6 ? (3)

T T ? ? ? ? (4)

(H16 maybe) L 6 3 5 ? (5)

? T 6 3 7/8 5 1/4 ? (6)

C T 6 3 7/8 5 3/8 ? (7)

? T 4 3 7/8 5 ? (8)

H L 6 3 1/8 5 ? (9)

RS, T T 6 4 1/2 6 ? (10)

only numbered T 4 5 /3/8 5 1/2 ? (13)

There are 2 engines designated a model "BB". One is a 6 cylinder 3.5 bore 5.25 stroke "T" head. The other "BB" is a 4 cylinder 3.875 bore, no stroke given.

There are 2 engines with the "H" designation. One is a 3 1/2 inch bore 6 cylinder. The other is a 3 1/8 inch bore 6 cylinder.

Autos that they were used in are as follows. See the right hand column above for the "note" number found in the parentheses.

note #1 used in the 1912 American

note #2 used in the 1914 American

1916-1918 McFarlan "X"

1918 McFarlan 127

1919-1920 McFarlan 90 (Teetor Anstead engine?)

note #3 1921-1924 Pilot 6-45 (Teetor Anstead engine?)

1914 American 644 (some 644 t heads were numbered only, no letters)

note #4 1913, 1915,1916 Pilot 6-60

1916 McFarlan 6-T

note #5 1916 Pilot 6-45

note #6 1916 Pilot 6-55

note #7 1915 Lexington

note #8 1916 Auburn 4-38

1916,1917 Empire 45

1916 Lexington 4-KA

note #9 1917 Auburn 6-39

1917-1921 Pilot 6-45 (1918-1921 are in fact Teetor Hartley)

note #10 1914 American 644

note #11 1913 American type 34-A

There were also type 34-A Americans that had an engine with no letter designation, just numbered

note #12 1912 - 1913 American type 22 and type 22-A

note #13 1907 thru 1911 American model 50

The 6 cylinder "BB" was used in 1915 Pilot 55

Connersville Museum has a 1913 Empire with engine CE31-72C. No other tags were evident on the engine.

Much of this info can be very confusing. Enjoy, Kent

Edited April 22, 2012 by Xprefix28truck (see edit history)

[1912Staver]

Hi Kent, please remember to add Staver to your list of Teetor customers. Not only did they use 4 and 6 cyl. Teetors , Dan Teetor was for a time at least the Staver Design Engineer. There was lots of engineering "cross pollination" between American , Teetor Hartley and Staver Chicago. The subframe on my 1912 Staver is Identical to that used on an American Underslung; the crossmember is used upsidedown on the Staver to place the engine and transmission below the main frame, on the American it locates the engine and trans. above the main frame. Makes sense if the two makes are using the same engine , same frame supplier, and "friendly" engineering depts. There are 3 known Teetor engined Staver survivors if you count my incomplete project car.

All the best Greg

[Bud Tierney]

XP: Did I ever think to mention a T-H or Teetor engine in a tractor???

Per one of the tractor ref books, Lawter Tractor Co, originally of St Mary's, OH, and later Newcastle IN, in 1913 or so produced a Lawter tractor rated as a 20-40 with a "Teetor Motor Company" engine (no other engine info given per my notes).

If you're not familiar with older tractor ratings that's 20 "drawbar" HP and 40 "PTO" (power takoff) HP.

That same or another tractor ref showed Lawters for 1916 with a Wauk 4 3/4 x 6 1/4, rated as an 18-36; if that was actually the same tractor, de-rated with that large Wauk, the Teetor must either've been huge or the producers had an exaggerated impression of its power.

Wauk engine ads for 1914 and 1916 listed Lawter as using Wauk engines, so the Teetor might've just been in a few early units, or possibly just in a prototype for a test.

If you want to try to run this down the ref books I was using were:

Wendel's Ency of Am'cn Farm Tractors (most likely);

Std Cat Farm Tractors 1890-1960;

I&TTractor History (??) Vol I (Implement & Tractor was a farm magazine). All should be in your local pub library.

With sympathy, Bud.

[Bud Tierney]

XP: Was looking for something in a 1917 Burd ring catalog and by accident noted a Teetor-Hartley T-17 listed for 1917 with a 4 1/2 bore using 5 (five) 3/16 rings...

I don't know if this's a misprint or not.

I see in a 33 King list the T17 is listed as 4 ring 3/16 rings and the T18, T19 are listed as 5 ring 1/4 rings.

I believe I emailed a copy of the 33 King list but don't, offhand, recall the Burd listing (had computer problems, lost some email copy folders). Bud