BEFORE & AFTER
RESTORATION OF THE MONTH
"It's its own animal."
A restorer and collector learns from an old Western
By Terry L. Welch
Robert Critz says that, in restoring his 94-year-old, 25 hp Western engine, he learned how to be mechanically inclined.
For some people, this might not be much of a statement. We might expect a steep learning curve for those who've never wallowed in the innards of engines. Robert, however, has been working on vintage engines since he was 12. The Western engine just offered him some new challenges.
"It's just engineered differently than other engines I've worked on," Robert says. "Everything's mechanical and it's really critical on timing. If the timing isn't just right, it isn't going to run. It's its own animal."
"A friend of mine got the engine in a trade," he remembers, "but he didn't want to restore it. It was already disassembled and partway restored, though, and I told him I wanted to finish it."
Years went by before Robert got the call from his friend asking him if he wanted to buy the engine. In July 1999, he picked it up and began the restoration process that would take him 11 months to complete.
"Everything was already in pretty good shape," Robert says. "I had to make the ignitor trip and there were some parts I had to machine. Everything had to be tweaked and bent just right."
Robert says that his desire to make the engine just like it would have been as it left the factory floor made the job even more difficult. "The hardest part of the whole restoration was trying to find pictures of the pinstriping," he says.
He can say that, though, because he's skilled in machining. The 27-year-old high voltage line worker says that skill is essential. "What helps you in this hobby is knowing how to make the parts yourself - foundry casting and machining."
That's advice he passes on to his friends and others just entering the hobby. It's a good sign, too, he says, that more younger collectors are needing that advice. "More and more guys my age are getting into this hobby. They're not starting out with engines like this, but they're starting out with the more common engines and working their way up." And they're learning about the history of engines.