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Help to ID a BRUNNER UTICA, N.Y. compressor

Yup, it's a Brunner alright! I have a larger, slightly newer vertical model in the shop. Mine has the same bronze valve housings and all. Best I can tell, about 4x4" bore and stroke.

There is/was a Brunner website advertising parts and info. I have emailed the guy about four times and gotten no response at all.
 
Hi Mike and Mel, thanks for the info! Hit/Miss conversion makes sense. The guy that gave it to me was a steam engine, hit/miss engine, model railroad (lionel) collector and he had all kinds of box-beds, stuarts, vertical and horizontals etc... Now I just have to get the piston free and give it a good cleaning. Maybe he will want to start a small project to get it running again. We'll see. Thanks again, Jim
 
Well, I was able to free up the piston fairly easily using WD-40 overnight and 1 tap with a wood dowel and hammer, so now it moves freely, but I have a trivial question that hopefully the pictures will help answering. Is the piston supposed to come out the front? The reason I ask is there is a ridge of rust build up inside the cylinder (I think from being set in that position for so long) which restricts the piston from coming out the front. Should I clean that up smooth so the piston can slide out the front, or is the "ridge" a normal part of the cylinder to "stop" the piston from going to far? It will not come out on the back side because the collars for the flywheel shaft are in the way. (too narrow). Any suggestions? Thanks, Jim
 

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Old time auto mechanics (back when they actually worked on cars instead of just replacing parts), would have a ridge reamer hanging on the wall. This was a big adjustable reamer for cutting the ridge that was left by wear off the top of the cylinder, beofre installing new rings. Not reaming would result in broken rings as the new ones crashed into the ridge.

You can probably use a large cylinder hone (auto parts store) in a hand drill to slick this down to where you can get the piston out. Don't go so deep as to get into the bore and enlarge it. Lot of WD-40, mineral spirits or diesel fuel to lube the stones. Work it back and forth as it runs to cross hatch the grinding lines.
 








 
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