Confessions of an Engine Collector

By Willy Carson

“To gather together, to accumulate, as a hobby or for study,” this is what the dictionary has to say about the word ‘collect’. To those in-theknow, collecting things is much more than this simple definition might indicate. The thesaurus includes an extensive list of synonyms such as acquire, accumulate, amass, congregate, flock together, rally and assemble; verbs which suggest some complexity to the initial concept.

Consider the farmer keeping a close eye on the performance of his plough as the furrows turn over. A glint of light appears on the up turned soil. He takes a moment’s pause from his work, walks back and unearths an old bottle which may not have seen the light of day for several decades. He rubs off the worst of the dirt and sets it behind the tractor seat for further examination at the end of the day. That’s not a collection, that’s just a bottle but when the same thing happens a few days later, it’s the start. He tells the neighbour what he has found and before long he receives a box with a few old bottles that have been sitting on a shelf in someone’s shed for years. It would be rude to say no. From that moment on there is no going back; he’s a collector. Is it instinctive behaviour? It certainly isn’t something which has to be learnt. It may be a case of being in the right (or wrong) place at the right (or wrong) time. Some will even blame it on bad company but whatever its origins, collecting old stuff has been a recognised condition for years and a cure has yet to be found.

The Ruston & Hornsby, the first engine in Trevor’s collection

Trevor Cooke from Gortin, Co. Tyrone understands. “It all started more than twenty five years ago when my father-in–law, William, bought a Lister D to restore and take to shows. He knew little about old engines and I knew less so we went to the late Bertie Marshall who was an engine man and he kept us right. The engine was complete and the mag was good so it was just a matter of cleaning the carb and some of the moving parts. William then acquired a Lister H3 water pump which needed a bit of work and when it was working properly we made a trolley for it and the engine and took it to local rallies.”

Before long Trevor decided that he needed an engine too. Finding a Ruston Hornsby 3hp PB complete with a water pump for sale in the classified ads in a magazine, he made his first engine purchase. The engine was in Wigan and it could have cost him more to bring it home than it cost to buy it but he had a plan. His brother was a student at Harper Adams at the time and he arranged to borrow a friend’s trailer and transport it as far as a farm near Dumfries in Scotland. It stayed with an expat Tyrone man for several months until he was returning to Northern Ireland with a cattle lorry and was able to complete the engine’s journey to Trevor’s yard. The Ruston was in good condition and before long Trevor had it running and ready for a cosmetic restoration in original livery and with new transfers.

It takes more than one engine to start a collection but the Ruston didn’t have to wait long before it had

1½hp Alamo engine built in Michigan USA

company. “My daughter went to study in Manchester which meant that when Diane and I went to visit her we arranged our trip to coincide with the 1000 Engine Rally at Astle Park. That’s where I bought a few engines over the years including an Amanco engine which I had to strip it down, taking the flywheels off, so that it would fit into the car for the journey home. On a more recent trip we went to the Woodford Stationary Engine Autojumble in Northants where we bought an Alamo 1½hp engine which was running and ready to show.”

Over the years Trevor and Diane built up a circle of ‘engine’ friends and went to see various collections. They met Vince Hopkins when he visited Northern Ireland’s Traction Engine Club Rally and that led to a visit to see Vince’s collection in Herefordshire. Sadly, Vince passed away last year but Trevor has good memories of their friendship and great respect for his restoration skills and attention to detail. It is no surprise that he was delighted when the Hopkins family offered him the opportunity to buy a rare 1927 Frank Hartop Model M 1¼hp. Vince had built a beautifully crafted trolley for the engine which is designed to keep the centre of gravity low and make the whole assembly more stable during transport.

Other engines were purchased closer to home, often needing a complete overhaul. Trevor’s most remarkable restoration began after a conversation with his uncle who told him that he had seen what he thought might be the remains of an engine in the undergrowth behind a hayshed on a local farm. Trevor went to investigate and at first thought that he had come across a Lister CS diesel but closer examination revealed that it was a very early International Harvester Company 2hp vertical engine built in 1906. Its thermosyphon cooling tank mark it out as a ‘pre-Famous’ engine built before the name Famous became associated with the marque, the screen cooling system was introduced and the fuel tank was cast as part of the crankcase base.

What was the condition of this one hundred year old engine? “Both flywheels were present but everything was seized and there was a bird’s nest in the bottom of the crankcase. I undid the big end, took the head off and removed the barrel with the piston still seized solid. I soaked them in diesel for months and gave the piston a tap every now and again until, eventually it moved. The timing gears were useable apart from the crank gear. I left the crank with an engineer who lathed it down to solid metal and then made a sleeve to bring it

The 1927 Frank Hartop Model M 1¼hp, engine from Vince Hopkins’ collection. It sits on a beautifully constructed steel trolley which Vince made. Frank Hartop engines were built in Bedford. 1906 IHC 2hp vertical engine. Trevor built the trolley and cooling tank stand for his 100 year old engine.

back to the original diameter. He turned the crank gear down so that the original centre boss could be used and then machined a new gear with the correct tooth profile and fixed it to the original centre. The barrel was bored, relined and machined back to the original specification but I was able to use the original piston and rings. The head needed new valves, the seats had to be recut and I had to buy new springs. There’s a firm in Maryland called Starbolt who supplied all the valve components and the head gasket. The carburettor, the ends of the push rod and the fuel pump had rotted away but Don Oberholtzer in Ohio who casts new parts was able to supply what I needed. The magneto was rewound but it still has the original rusty pitted magnets. I sent the dimensions of the fuel tank to Frank Gelder in Goole, Yorks and he made a new one. When I had everything assembled I started to mess about with the timing and gave it a couple of swings and, well I wasn’t expecting anything to happen but it fired up and ran. The original cooling tank was long gone but I found that a honey extraction spinner was the right size and it looks right.”

Trevor made some inquiries about the local engine suppliers of the era and found that Henderson’s Foundry, just six or seven miles away in Omagh, imported IHC machinery. After the foundry had been shut down for the day, some of the Henderson family would have uncrated and assembled farm machinery from the International Harvester Company bearing the McCormick brand name. As a further local connection, Cyrus McCormick, founder of the company in the 1830s was descended from a Co. Tyrone family.

Footnote: Leaf through the Collins English Dictionary and you’ll find the following definition; incomplete: not finished, not completely developed, imperfect. Synonyms include: deficient, imperfect, insufficient, lacking, unaccomplished, wanting.

If you’re a collector, you’ll understand.

The carb body was cast by Don Oberholtzer in America. The atmospheric inlet valve is one example of the primitive engineering used a century ago.