6230 East 81st N. Idaho Falls, Idaho 83401
Here is some stuff for your magazine that should provide some
interesting reading for your subscribers, and hopefully some reader
feedback to me as well.
First, I had wanted a traction engine for as long as I can
remember, and I spied an ad in your magazine for a 16 HP
Aultman-Taylor for sale by Knute Kirkberg, in California. A call to
Knute brought the information that the engine was at Austin
Monk’s panoramic ranch northwest of Kalispell, Montana.
After a call to Knute and calls to Austin for information, I
talked to my good friend Jim Matson from Columbia Falls, Montana
and he helped a lot by going to Austin’s and giving the Aultman
a first hand eyeballing.
After some phone negotiations to Knute, during which I was made
aware of all the problems anyone knew of with the engine, a deal
was made and now 1 had a traction engine. I negotiated with another
friend from Ogden, Utah, Carl Nelson, of Nelson Crane Service to
take his semi up to Montana and haul the Aultman home for me.
I mention all these people and their locations and contributions
not only because I am in their debt, but because I think it
epitomizes what is so great about this hobby; the old time values
of being able to take people at their word and people helping each
other are still alive and well. Here we have one person in Idaho
(me), one in California, and several in Montana, one from Michigan,
and one in Utah, all working together to get a deal done that is
still basically in the handshake stage, and everyone does what they
say they will do, and everything is the way they say it is. Too bad
we can’t ALL run our businesses and our lives like that in this
country anymore.
Of all the problems I was told about, the most important was
that one half of the clutch was broken off and the piece could not
be found, but that was maybe less of a problem to me than it would
be to most people.
About the pictures: In picture #1 I am talking to Austin prior
to loading the A. T., and the other person in the picture is
another friend I have made, the one and only Doug McDougal, from
Kalispell, Montana. Doug has been a lot of help and he also gave me
a copy of ‘Rough and Tumble Engineering ‘ which was my main
education on how to get started actually running a steam traction
engine. I’ve almost read the print off of it! In #2 the engine
is loaded on Carl’s giant lo boy trailer, just before dark. The
rest of the pictures show my shop making the parts needed to repair
the clutch and the steam cylinder external covers. (As I said
before, the missing clutch was not as great a problem to me as it
would have been for some, but I doubt I would have purchased this
engine if I did not own a shop that repairs cast iron and has full
machine shop capabilities, because this was a lot of work even for
us). The last two pictures show the engine at a small threshing bee
not too far from my house.
There was a lot of miscellaneous work to get this engine into
working order, although it was basically in real good shape. First
there was about 55 gallons of bird’s nests taken out through a
2′ hole at the top of the dome, and about the same amount of
rust and scale from the boiler proper. And of course there were
other little things to do, such as finding a good steam gauge and
whistle (the originals were missing), and tightening or replacing
fittings, and just a lot of cleaning in general.
In the process of all this I met another person who has become a
friend, John Schrock of Michigan, the ‘guru of steam’ who
many of you know, and whose help in getting this engine ready to
test was invaluable. John as well as Austin tells me that the
Aultman is really a 20 HP not a 16 as I originally thought.
Anyway, the rest of the repairs were made and the remade pieces
installed and the boiler pressure tested (thanks, Austin, for the
loan of the pump unit to do this!) to 160 lbs. A few miscellaneous
pipes and so forth were tightened, and after a few more phone calls
to Austin and John, I fired the A.T. several times and ran around
my eight acre field.
I sure drew a crowd whenever anyone would drive by and see it
operating. A friend of mine here in Idaho Falls, Andrew Barrie, is
old enough to remember the steam threshers coming to his folks’
farm but had not been old enough to actually ride on or drive a
traction engine, and he got quite a kick out of driving it around
the back field.
Anyway, after becoming a bit more familiar with the engine’s
operation, the time arrived for me to load it on my little semi and
take it to the local threshing bee. Had quite some fun loading it.
I hadn’t had the truck and trailer very long and when we went
to load the A. T. the PTO winch cable broke, and since the trailer
is a tilt bed, down the ramps she went like a rocket! Well,
all’s well that ends well, and after replacing the cable, away
we went.
At the little threshing bee, I belted up to a 28′ John Deere
thresher. I had quite a time getting it up to threshing speed
partially because the thresher had a belt pulley on it for a gas
tractor (which I didn’t know at the time), but I think part of
it was the steam engine. (Here’s where I could use some help
from some of you out there.) I could only let them put the bundles
on about five feet apart, or the engine couldn’t pull the
thresher fast enough. So here’s the first of two questions to
you: First, how much would the wrong belt pulley on the thresher
affect the engine’s power? The pop off is set at 110 lbs, and I
was running at about 100 to 105 lbs. steam. I have checked all the
obvious things, like the governor and the main steam valve and I
have talked to John Schrock about it, but the old girl just
didn’t have enough power to thresh. (No one here had ever
belted ANYTHING to a steam engine before, me included, since I seem
to have the only operative traction engine in eastern Idaho,
although I know of one in northern Idaho. We had plenty of steam
up, (??) and I could hold right up to almost popping off, but just
had no power. Fooling with the governor didn’t seem to change
anything but the engine speed. Other than the obvious answer of
excess cylinder clearance, does anyone have any ideas as to the
lack of power?
The second question is about the old girl’s date of
manufacture. The steam cylinder proper is 9076, and the two end
caps are 6870 is this a mix and match or what?
