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Anyone Recognize this 4 Cyl Air Cooled Engine?

adh2000

Titanium
Joined
Dec 21, 2005
Location
Waukesha, WI
Picked this up at a swap meet over the weekend. No markings anywhere. The external camshaft and lifter arrangement is very unusual and should help identify this antique.
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Yeah, at this point it is ultra low emission, also ultra low output power.

The front and rear mains are ball bearing, the center main is split bronze.

Each cylinder has two valves. One intake, one exhaust, I assume.

I'd guess it's from the teens? Traces of nickel plating on the lifters. Would look nice restored, the missing cylinder is a problem......

First need to find out what it is.
 
Not a Franklin, not a Marmon. Too large & cast iron to be a motorcycle motor? This is a weird one.

The really popular antique air cooled auto motors are easy to look up, but the rarer ones, like this particular one, may be very difficult to pin down.

Dan L
 
Too large & cast iron to be a motorcycle motor? This is a weird one.

Dan L

It is small, about the right size to be a motorcycle motor, but I'm pretty familiar with those. It is not a Pierce, Ace, Henderson, Indian, Millitaire, or Militor. All 4 cyl motorcycle motors I'm aware of have aluminum cases, this is iron.

If it was Euro it would be metric. Which it may be. Most of the bolts are conveniently missing and several are obviously not original to the motor. Still more are mangled beyond being measured. However the rod end caps are held on with 5/16-20 bolts. An odd thread for sure but that's not unusual on early stuff. Perhaps it's M8x1.25 not 5/16-20. The cylinder studs are 3/8-16. Another oddball. Maybe that's M10x1.5?
 
My first thought is it even a combustion engine.

Agreed. Fittings seem wrong. Overly large and cooling-finned pre-chambers, but far too light for semi-Diesel combustion loads?

Looks more like a pump. Not necessarily AIR - that would not need positive valve actuation, both sides. Early-days refrigerant? Or for pressuring some other gas - mebbe a synthesized fuel gas for a mill's furnace? Keeping a natural gas pipeline moving? Might it have been steam-driven? Waste-gas driven?
 
It seems to share some cylinder characteristics with Henderson motorcycle engines from the teens, but the open cam is a real puzzler.


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it could be from a WW1 trench pump......they favoured 4 cyl a/c ,and Ive seen lots of strange 4cyls in bits that were claimed to be .....not like that ,tho......However ,I suggest there was a finned flywheel and a cooling air shroud fitted over the exposed gear side of the motor,so it wasnt as strange as it might seem......What size are sparkplug holes .....if they are 7/8x14,then its likely US,if 18mm,then likely Euro/Brit...........edit....Henderson were overhead inlet ,until the Deluxe model.....and strangely ,it seems Henderson/Excelsior did make at least one OHV motor in cast iron crankcase.But they always has mushroom lifters.
 
It looks like there are threads in some of the valve covers. Those are probably the spark plug holes. Seems odd that there are two more holes into the combustion chamber: plug, primer, what's the third hole?

Many early four cylinder motorcycle engines were in-unit with the transmission, so that might be a clue.

I'd build a bike for it. 😍
 








 
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