Hit Miss Engine

Here’s a highly sought after and unusual engine that will make a great restoration project and a valuable addition to anyone’s antique gas engine collection! This odd looking little fella was originally made by the Aermotor Windmill Company of Chicago Illinois as a backup power system for their extensive line of windmills and water pumping equipment. When the wind refused to cooperate and you had livestock to water or Saturday night baths to draw, you would simply wheel or carry this dandy little power plant out to the windmill, position it under the tower next to the pump, unhook the sucker rod on the pump from the windmill and affix it to the walking beam that was hooked to the engine’s exposed gear set via a pitman arm, hook up the dry cell you took from your house telephone to the engine’s ignitor, spin the flywheel while putting your thumb over the mixer’s intake to richen the intake charge and presto-changeo, you’re pumping water like a Thoroughly Modern Millie! Aermotor, which is still in business, although now in Texas, made thousands of these engines, but Rural Electrification programs, WWII scrap drives and just plain rust and rot attrition have since thinned the herd considerably, making them a bit more desirable now than they were when you had no choice but depend on one to fill your stock tank on a chilly -10F morning. As you can see from the photographs, this engine has a couple of unusual features in that it has a flywheel that has been grooved, apparently at the factory? For a “V” belt, and it also has a two-lobed, 4 cycle cam instead of the far-more-common 8 cycle version possibly an adaptation for cold weather use?? It seems this engine was destined for some kind of ultra top-secret special duty, but as to what that was, I have no idea. Optioned with that rarely seen cam and a never seen before flywheel variation certainly makes it a unique example of this engine- I’ve never seen nor heard of another grooved flywheel, either in person or online, and 4 cycle cams are few and far between- whether that combo is good or bad is for you to decide. The grooved flywheel would certainly make it very easy to hook up a starter/generator to it to give you a self-starting engine, something (for reasons that will become obvious later) I briefly considered. Now, as to the rest of the engine, it is so nice it appears as if you could just give it a whiff of gasoline and a flick of the flywheel and it would take right off, although I haven’t tried to start it even though I’ve owned it for several.. Nope, sorry, I just can’t do it! ……….. Like me, aren’t you highly skeptical when you read that all-too-common line of “. I haven’t tried to start it. ” B. In an engine ad? OK, that may actually be a good strategy- I remember getting an old engine running BEFORE I actually bought it and then having the owner promptly triple the price- I was kinda pissed, but hey, even at 90 dollars almost any 10 h. Mogul side shaft is still a fairly good deal. But even when considering that, once you’ve got an engine home and in the garage, you mean to tell me you’re truly not the least bit curious as to how well (if at all) it runs? I just don’t believe it. I’d be damned if I’m going to trip over an engine in the shed more than a few time without trying to start it! You never know, it might be the sweetest running engine you’ve ever owned, or maybe the previous owner stuffed a wad of silver certificate one hundred dollar bills up the exhaust pipe for safe keeping- either way you’ll never know exactly what you’ve got unless you try and spin those flywheels a few times! Come on now, would you sell a bank vault safe without cracking it? I didn’t think so. Rest assured, the next time you read that “. I haven’t tried to start it. ” line in an ad don’t believe it. They tried, and tried, it just doesn’t run. Think about it: a running engine will ALWAYS bring more than one that doesn’t so why wouldn’t you try to start it? Caveat Emptor my friends. Ok, whew, I feel better now. So, where was I? Oh, yeah, the engine. Let me be clear: in its present state it doesn’t run. I tried and tried, it just doesn’t run. Other than some maddingly promising smoky puffs and wheezes, it just refuses to catch fire and pull itself through a complete cycle. It does have pretty low compression (about 1.001:1) and will at the very least need a set of rings (Starbolt has them for around 20 bucks) which I’m sure would go a long way towards curing its non-starting issues. As a bonus what you can see of the bore without actually pulling the piston looks pretty good. It could also use a set of guards for the crank throw and the exposed gearing (Starbolt again for these) although lotsa guys seem happy to run these engines without those parts installed. I guess I should point out here that it also still has the bottom gear with the three L. Threaded holes for attaching the pump jack pitman arm – as this gear is commonly missing for some reason. The connecting rod big end is a tad on the loose side, but there are still enough shims present to allow you to take up the slack. The rest of the engine is not too bad, but over the years it has gotten its share of modifications. The studs holding the exhaust valve and cage are now bolts, the gasoline tank is a well-made stainless steel copy, and both the governor follower rod and the ignitor trip rod have had heat applied to them so they could be tweaked, sometime after somebody applied that Krylon green paint. It is also missing the original muffler, which may actually be a good thing as it was a terrible design that turned the expelled gasses back 90 degrees onto the engine, supposedly to help cool it you know, like you do on a hot day in the garage when you fire up your torches and aim the flame at your face to cool off.. but if you really must have one, there are plans on Smokstak to make your own, or failing that, supposedly there’s a some dude somewhere online that sells them already made. The serial number -or more correctly letters- on this particular engine is “CRUSC”. Apparently there are a few different ways to interpret that code and date the engine but none of them seem to be able to agree on anything specific other than it was built probably sometime in the twentieth century, most likely after 1909 but definitely before 1999. All in all, it is an admittedly a far from perfect example of this little odd-ball engine, but one well worth putting a little effort into to get a nice and highly collectible “hit and miss” gas engine (and it actually IS a hit and miss governed engine-geez, don’t get me started on THAT one.) for your collection. Thank you and good luck! As fuel cost rise, so does the prices to send stuff via trucks across this country and around the world. The heavier the package the higher it costs to send-it’s just a fact of life. That way I can call the expediter and give them all the pertinent information (What it is, where it’s going, the weight and overall dimensions) to get their best price. Because of the wildly fluctuating rates, it seems this is the fairest way to do this. In fact, once you figure out the price of packing materials and the moral cost of constantly faking family emergencies to get out of work early to get to the post office before it closes, I’m sure I’m losing a bit. The bottom line is this. If anyone has an easier or fairer way do this, please let me know. The item “ANTIQUE AERMOTOR HIT & MISS 8 / 4 CYCLE WINDMILL PUMP ENGINE” is in sale since Sunday, August 16, 2015. This item is in the category “Business & Industrial\Light Equipment & Tools\Stationary Engines\Engines”. The seller is “moonboopie” and is located in Davison, Michigan. This item can’t be shipped, the buyer must pick up the item.