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This one will take a while for me to finish up. Bought this welder, used, in Claysville, PA for $100 cash (not running) and have been working on it for a few months so far. Got the disty apart, engine disassembled, drilled out and re-tapped a few bolt holes where the bolts snapped (hey, it looked like I was the first one to disassemble this welder since it was built ... JUST AFTER THE WAR in 1946).Got some pics and vids of it so far, Wisconsin crank-start TF-2, 14.6hp, recommended octane rating of 40-50. Runs on kerosene, propane, diesel, gas, natural gas, barrel oil (as in what comes out of the ground), used or new motor oil (I'd go with used ... town mechanic, so I have enough used motor oil to run this thing until we're flying around in hovercars), and the list goes on and on and on. Basically, it's the civilian version of the military field welder from WW2 (I guess Lincoln was too lazy to draw up new designs and retool after the war ended, so they just kept on building the same welders for a while). Either way, in 1946, the old guy I bought it from said he paid $1200 brand new for it, when he came back from the war, so in today's $$$ that's about $60000 (or 2x what I paid for my house). In the ads, they claimed it would be "the last welder that you'd ever need" (I guess they didn't see the day coming when we'd have MIG and TIG) but it's a good, solid welder, and has at least 2x the $100 in it in scrap metal.Was wondering if anyone on here had ever resto'd one of these? It's got a good bit of wear and tear to it, but still, the crank feels relatively light (for having, probably, 200lbs of steel and iron rotating).Problems right now (that I've found):body all beat up (got a friend of mine who finished college for paint/bodywork, I told him I'll pay him, plus he can use this as an example of his worksmanship to hopefully get him a job)Disty: points and condensor shot (gonna replace those plus the coil just so I don't have to worry about that)New spark plug wires (the ones on there look like they were given to Jaime Hyneman with the instructions to bring them back in pieces, and THEN got repaired)New spark plugs (the old ones were cracked and oxidized)Low compression - about 3:1 or 3.5:1 (spec WAS 6:1, now calling for 8.5:1 if you can get it for the "modern" fuel octanes)Going to order new gaskets ... these are, after all, 60+ year old gaskets, I think they might have outlived their "usable lifespan" .Here's a little video I did showing the welder, as far as my discussing where pistons and valves are, that was for a fella who was mentioning that I can mill the head as far as I can until the pistons and valve touch, so I figured I'd show him what the engine itself actually looks like and such. |
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