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andrew
| | Posted on Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 09:30 pm: | 
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Randy Ridderbush from Valdez, Alaska asked me to post these pictures of his restored Gray. He has a story to go with the restoration which I hope he will post below.
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Randy Ridderbush
| | Posted on Friday, August 22, 2003 - 12:20 pm: |
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The Story of Gray Engine - 3U28714
The beginning of the story starts with Alan James.
He got the engine from Alaska Land. An amusement center and museum kind of affair in Fairbaks, Alaska. He got it in trade for some work he did on some engines for them.
Then, the engine was given to me by my friend Alan
"RustyAl" James in December of last year.
I received the engine in a wooden box and immediately started to tear into into. When
I finally got the engine from from its wooden
cell, I was both happy and disappointed. Al
said the piston was stuck, and he wasn't fibbing.
The overall condition of the engine was "good"
considering the age. The exterior was void of all
paint and rusty. The engine was in two pieces.
The promising feature of the engine was the presence of the water pump, complete. The engine was missing all the rest of the essentials. The
timer assembly and timing gear - gone. But Alan had given me two timer shafts and a timer, all
in marginal condition. So I took two and made one. I had a timing gear machined by Seattle Gear Works, not cheap, but they did an outstanding job.
Alan and I used a hydraulic press and copius amounts of heat to get the piston freed up.
I was able to reuse the original rings, and sur-
prisingly have good compression. The rings
only took two and one-half hours to get off the
piston.
I field fabricated the timer control myself. I have about 30 degrees of adjustment with this setup. I am going to use the engine in a 16 foot
boat, direct dive, so I probably won't need any
more than that.
The brass goodies were purchased from Essex Brass.
The Schebler Carb, I got from Art DeKalb. It is
a new in the box (I have the original box) Model
D. Carb built in Flint, MI
I had Ed @ Hit and Miss Ent. make a new wrist pin and straighten the connecting, which
got tweeked a little from the piston removal process. Ed also poured me a new set of babbitt bearings for the rod. The main bearings were in very good condition and reinstalled in the engine.
The crank shaft was sent to Cokers machine in Anchorage, Alaska. They turned it and cleaned it
up. They did a nice job, considering the condition when the got it. I fitted the connecting rod bearing to the crankshaft using Timer Saver lapping compound. The stuff works great. I fitted the bearing to .002 on the rod.
All in all it took me eight months to get the engine completed, as I didn't work on it steady
and was awaiting parts some of that time. But,
after having received all the parts and goodies, I immediately went to work and got it completed.
I hope you enjoyed the story and the pictures.
Thanks for looking.
Best to all,
Randy |
richarddurgee
| | Posted on Friday, August 22, 2003 - 02:28 pm: |
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Looking at Randy's 1918 Model U above it has the round threaded inspection covers, so I changed Number 8. in the " GRAY MOTOR COMPANY list determining decade of engine to 1918. Also updated it !
>
Andrew did we ever put this on the web site anywhere ?? Richard
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richarddurgee
| | Posted on Friday, August 22, 2003 - 03:02 pm: |
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Again
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richarddurgee
| | Posted on Friday, August 22, 2003 - 03:36 pm: |
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Andrew
This is to condensed and parts of the names have been pushed to the left side, if you want to post it I'll send it to you to size correctly.
Thanks Richard |
andrew
| | Posted on Friday, August 22, 2003 - 04:23 pm: |
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Richard,
Yes... send it to me and an I will put it in a "table" and post it on a "Gray" page. Sorry I didn't get to it yet.
Regards, Andrew |
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Visitor
| | Posted on Monday, March 06, 2006 - 04:44 pm: |
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