Hit-Miss Gas Engines and Tractors

(Update: old gas engines running belt driven machine tools)

I saw the term hit-miss for an old gas engine. That makes sense because they fire only during cycles that have a slow enough governor speed.

Video including some closeups

(new window)  Taken at the 2014 Hesston Steam Museum Show

A video of a rather large old gas engine.

45 photos from a 2012 threshing bee.

A video of a couple of musicians using an engine as their percussion instrument. Note that the European designs have a vertical format as opposed to the horizontal format I'm used to seeing in the USA. It looks old, but it must have variable fuel input rather than miss some cycles because it is firing every cycle. I wonder what it sounds like under load. Note the wiggle of the top of the exhaust stack.

A video that uses a small green engine to start a big red one.

Video of a 2-hp pumping up compressed air in a tank to start at 20-hp engine. The 2-hp part is neat because when he engages the compressor, you hear it fire every revolution.

A believe this is a video of the 1.5hp engine shown being restored by this video. Note that the restoration still needs some fine tuning because in the first video it some times "hits" a few times before it actually fires. In fact, sometimes it misses so many hits that it gets slow enough that it then firest twice in a row.

A video of 35 engines in 10 minutes. Not all of them are hit-miss, but most of them are pretty old. Some of the hit-miss are set so the flywheel is going rather slow before it fires. This lets you see the significant speedup of the flywheel when it does fire.

Screenshot from Video

A tutorial video that I start where Mike is allowed to explain the latch block and latch. If the guy with the camera would have quit trying to put add his two cents, this could have been a good video. Nonetheless, I did learn about how the governor controls when the exhaust valve push rod is allowed to cycle. The push rod also activates the spark.

Wisconsin Historical Society

Wisconsin Historical Society

Wisconsin Historical Society

Wisconsin Historical Society

Wisconsin Historical Society

Wisconsin Historical Society
[Isn't paraffin a solid? I can't imagine how it can be used as a fuel.]

Wisconsin Historical Society
["International Harvester Engine Trade Card" Did people trade these like baseball cards?]

Wisconsin Historical Society

Wisconsin Historical Society

See some Waterloo Boy and John Deere engines here.

Screenshot

While writing about corn shelling, I came across a video of an engine that is doing real work --- running the elevator. Notice that it "pops" more often than an idle engine fires.

A video of another engine doing real work, in this case driving a stationary hay baler (starting at about 0:30). Note that it is firing every cycle.

The second entry in this post is another example of a hit-miss driving a stationary hay baler.