Customs Anybody into Steam Power?

I figure its a bit outside of HAMB but wanted to ask if anyone here was into steam power cars? If I had half the talent of some of the metal workers here Id have to delve into a steam powered project, maybe even from scratch.

 

Um, Big Boy, my favorite...

 

If I'm not mistaken, I seem to recall hearing that the Stanley Steamer in it's day could accelerate faster than any gasoline powered auto. If drag racing had existed, steam power may have ruled the strip.

I can see myself in it back then, cruising along with the top down and listening to the hiss of the pipes!

 

Saw a couple of p***es made by a steam powered motorcycle just yesterday at the ECTA LSR races at Wilmington, Ohio. Just bumped 80 MPH on the one mile course which seemed pretty impressive for a vehicle that made practically no noise.

 

This one is awesome

 

check out jay leno s garage videos on the net he has steam cars and a steam tractor and some very nice vintage stationary steam engines in his collection ,

 

Yeah Jay's collection is really great. There were some brothers I had read about - maybe it was Stanley, that really optimized steam power for cars and out performed gas but it was right at the major boom for gas power.

 

Correction - it was the Doble brothers. Their steam car could be ready, from cold, in only 40 seconds. Really impressive stuff. I kinda wish this stuff was still available today!

 

Doble was out of San Francisco I think on Harrison St
if they would have gotten together with Stanly there would have been a fantastic steamer

 

people seem to blow off a lot of steam here so, guess it is H.A.M.B. friendly

 

As a fan of most things mechanical, I could see toying with a steam project. Just looking and listening to all the things it does, would be enough to keep occupied days on end.

As a newbie welder and cartoonist, a little more research into it, would lead to some crazy **** that would occupy all my time and make me broker than I already am. By the by, have you seen some of the Steampunk chicks? Whoa...Nelly!

 

That was the car that recycles the water so you don't need to add water like the Stanley.

 

Walter White and his steam race car preparing for the 1905 vanderbilt cup race

 

I semi rebuilt my uncles 1911 Stanley Steamer. Took about a year and half to go through all the valves and cylinders repacking them and making sure everything was tight and ready to run.

Steams is not easy to work with, packing valves had to be done a very specific way not to leak. The maze of copper tubing was just as bad, and each one had to be tight with double flared ends. You might get to use each piece twice, any more and you had to make a new piece. And don't forget all the asbestos insulation, this was a ( just as built ) car using just what they had at the time. The few deviation from stock were better wheel bearing, and better materials were used in some of the valves. Nothing looked out of place. Even the pin stripping was the same as this car came with copied from old photo's. The head lights were lit with a match or lighter and fuel was supplied to them from the acetylene tank on the running board. Dash light if you want to call it that, was a miners light clamped to the steering column filled with lamp oil. The same lamp oil was used in the tail light.

His was a two seater, 1 of 11 made and the only one of its type left. 20 hp double acting twin cylinder engine, 4" x 5" bore and stroke. It had the same number of power strokes as a V8 per revolution. Torque was hugh, enough to run side by side with most cars from a traffic light. Fully loaded it weighed more then 4000 lbs. Top speed I guess would be till you got scared enough to let off or couldn't make steam fast enough to replace what you were using, cruise was more like 35. Steering was terrible, the car was heavy, leaned hard each direction, and you had about 1 turn of the wheel in each direction. It was very simple gear on gear, very much like most cheap riding lawn mowers use today. The column was only mounted to the floor, so any hard steering made the whole column move, it was very nerve racking in tight spots.

Fuel was white gas ( unleaded gasoline ) where as the other steamers of the time were running Kerosine. Fuel milage was terrible in hilly areas or heavy steam use, some where in the 5 to 6 miles per gallon range. Water was even worse, it carried 35 gallons and used about 1 gallon per mile. Stanley's in the teen's did not recycle the steam, it was a total lose system, in the early 20's they started to recover steam, so distances increased but fuel usage was still pretty bad. The Kerosine cars could go farther due to more btu's in the fuel, but the hotter fuel was harder on the boilers. It didn't take but one low water incident to scorch the boiler, then it was time for replacement.

The boilers were spiral wrapped with piano type wire about 2 to 3 inches thick, so if there ever was a explosion, it would blow the top or bottom off, nothing into the drivers area. Records show no Stanley ever blew up due to a boiler malfunction. Steam was held at 500 psi, by a very cleaver valve with fuel on one side and steam on the other. As the steam pressure fell, the heavy springs would allow fuel to p*** through tubes right in the heart of the boiler instantly vaporizing it, it would exit out the front of the boiler, make a 180 turn and spray right back in the burner chamber. It was pretty scary knowing gasoline under 125 psi was flowing right through the fire box. It was also pretty noisy when the main fire was on. Water level in the boiler was key to any steam car working right. To much water and it took a long time to build steam, then the wasn't much of it due to space. To little water and you could vaporize it to fast and scorch the boiler blowing out the safety plugs.


Under the seats were five pumps always making noise as you drove. The engine linkage drove the pumps when moving. Two main water pumps, fuel pump, and oil pump. The fifth was a hand driven pump to keep fuel pressure up when not moving. There was a lot to do while driving, keep tabs on fuel and steam pressure, watch water level gauge, add water if the pumps don't keep up, and most important, know how much water is left so don't get stranded or over heat the boiler.

A 4 thousand pound car on 4" wide tires with simple linkage to the rear brakes only was enough to keep you alert, that and driving on the right hand side of the car . You also sat really high up with nothing holding you in. From dead cold to ready to run was about 40 to 45 minutes depending on if everything goes right. Shut down for the day was another 30 minutes. Both jobs were dirty, noisy, and dangerous. To buy fuel at a station, you had to turn off the fuel and blow out the pilot light, then drive a mile or two to cool the boiler. Pulling into a station with a lit pilot could be very very bad. You also had to drive away from the station, pull over and relight the pilot light, hopping the whole time the tubes didn't cool off enough to dump raw fuel into the burner. I did that once and the fire ball that followed blew the top clean off the burner. Lucky the hood was open or it could have bent it on the way out.

You can't forget the nasty steam oil, its like liquid grease that never washes off your hands or driveway. It had to be steam heated to flow. The oil was injected into the main steam pipe ahead of the engine to lubricate the cylinders and valves. If you ever see a steamer running down the road, don't follow to close since all the oil injected in, comes right out the tail pipe. Theres also about 2 gallons or more of the nasty stuff in the crankcase, held in by some thin rubber strips and a few screws across the top of a sheet metal pan. Cardboard was your friend when parked.

The steam whistle was really cool though!

Still want one? This one sold for $250,000 after my uncle p***ed away.

Here is me driving, my brother filming,

 

Thanks for the videos, they were fun to watch. I like the dash light (like you explained above)I had no idea these cars were so expensive!

 

Steam cars are great, but it takes a very special person to restore and drive one. High maintenance for sure, I'd guess for every hour of touring time there was 2-3 in repair/upkeep. Bob

 

I kinda wish this stuff was still available today!

 

Been a fan for a long time and these ideas keep floating around my head about using modern materials to eliminate most of the inherent problems with steam, stainless steel, carbon ceramics, ***anium and the like.

Perverse idea to build a 100+ year old powerplant using modern formula one technology and materials.

 

There was a fascinating steam revival in North America in the mid-20s, with a few dozen start-ups never getting so far as to build a single car but some actually building a few. Of course Doble was active then, and Stanley was reaching the end of the road even though their condenser cars like the 735 were a lot more practical than the early ones. Some manufacturers were aimed at keeping Stanleys running but using then-modern coachwork. The general trend was towards Doble-style semi-flash water-tube boilers, but most of these operations didn't have the capital to make the most of the concept.

Here are a few later Stanleys:




Since, I believe the regulations surrounding boilers in many places have become prohibitively onerous - even for explosion-proof flash boilers. Otherwise it might have been something fun to play with.

 

Why the double steering wheels on 'Whistling Billy?

 

I must like steam power...I keep using this old computer! HRP

 

That was a White Steam Car trade mark the center wheel is the thottle.

 

So so cool!! What a machine. Thanks for sharing Joe and everyone

 

I went for a ride in a 1925 Stanley Steamer. The driver said it had 600 ft lbs. of torque as soon as you open the throttle. It was a fast car, but only had rear mechanical brakes!!!


Ago

 

i installed a 20 HP Stanley motor in a 1930 Model A ford roadster in the 80's...it was featured in Street Rodder magazine sometime i think around 1987?

 

When you think of all the problems gasoline IC engines have had from the early years in terms of reliability and ease of use, and the m***ive amounts of development which made those problems go away, the steamer's problems seem less important.
Bill Lear wanted to make a go of it, But I don't know of any newer development of steam power.

 

I read somewhere of an American manufacturer who at one time offered concentric steering wheels like that with different ratios. The outer wheel was fairly quick, for general use, and the inner wheel was slow-geared for manoeuvring. I've been trying to remember or find out who that was ever since.

 

We just finished working on a 1919 Stanley that we built fenders for. Defiantly not for everyone to restore, the owner spent 14 years and many $$$ redoing the mechanicals, It was a blast to take it out for a ride when we finished.
I have no idea how they sold them by the late teens. Way too expensive, too complicated by then. You could buy 10 Model T's for the cost of a Stanley and you didn't have to wait 30 minutes to build up enough steam to go anywhere!
I do understand they were the best if you needed a lot of power, I'm told the one we worked on was used to haul guests up a mountain to a lodge, gas cars didn't have the power to climb it.

 

They were used to take wealthy customers from train depots in loveland , boulder , longmont , etc.
Up to the Stanley hotel in Estes Park Colorado.
Owned by the same Stanley that built the cars.
I have a pic in one of my books of a line of SS cars lined up in front of the loveland depot waiting for the train to arrive.