History Vintage "Cageless" Midget Picture Thread

No restoration photos this week. Instead, the Fredrickson roadster as originally built, before it ever turned a wheel in competition. Rockford Speedway, 1956 with Bill Horstmeyer at the wheel. Carbureted Ford Fergy power and a VW cross torsion front suspension.

It was a better mousetrap with a few flaws: the front suspension collapsed in qualifying. The car was reworked with a conventional front axle; perhaps the same one Gregg Kishline spent 6 hours repairing last week.

The original wide nose was replaced by Ernie himself many years later when he narrowed the chassis and put a Chevy II in it. In between it carried an Offy & a Falcon.

 

This would have been the overhead valve Ford Tractor engine that came out in 1952 as opposed to the previous flat head that was commonly called a Ferguson.

I wonder how many of those OHV engines made it into midgets and how well they ran. I have only seen one other.

I would observe that the post war years were lean for suitable OHV stock blocks (domestic) until the Falcon in 1960 and the Chevy II in 1962. The flathead V8-60's were dominant in numbers, with Fergies, Willys, Studebaker, Continental secondary. The OHV Drake's and the 2 cycle Elto's were also still being run.

Great years.

 

I recognize the Dairy Kool Falcon & the Fredrickson roadster [of course] but would like to know more about the big car shown. It looks like a GMC 6 in it. Earlier I posted a photo of the Bill Johnson Chevy 6 powered big car & this looks similar.

 

oh, wait you said cageless, my bad.

 

Is that a Hillegass rail job?

 

I remember a Lycoming powered car that would come to the Heidelberg
1/4 mile with the ARDC in the 1950's John S.

 

Perhaps that is a Lycoming, it looks like a crossflow head and maybe a lot of oil return lines to the crankcase similar to a Ranger when it is run upright in a car as opposed to inverted in an airplane.

 

<o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com<img src=" images="" smilies="" redface.gif="" border="0" alt="" title="Embarrassment" smilieid="2" class="inlineimg"></o:smarttagtype><tt>Here is this week's progress report on the Fredrickson roadster restoration. Despite busy lives and family issues the volunteer crew is putting in many hours to get the car right. BTW, the fuel injection set-up that came with "the pile" is a much later "upswept" version. Anyone have a small throttle plate "straight in" Chevy II injection they'd care to swap?

Charles, <o></o></tt><tt><o></o></tt>
<tt>Despite more trips to the nursing home than I can count, I DID get some stuff done on the roadster. <o></o></tt><tt><o></o></tt>
<tt>The old original <st1:city w:st="on"><st1>Monroe</st1></st1:city> coil-overs (rear suspension) got a once over, cleanup, and beadblast - then etch-primed to preserve the surface until either paint or plating. I believe they'll work. <o></o></tt><tt><o></o></tt>
<tt>The motorplate got blasted, repaired, and primed up, as well. Ditto, the front torsion stops.</tt><tt><o></o></tt>
<tt>And veteran crewman Ed Kemen dropped by - he and I patched and re-fit the dashboard. It awaits a coat of non-reflective flat black, as original. <o></o></tt><tt><o></o></tt>
<tt>Mike Mowry (restoring the Fredrickson built 1952 Badger championship car) sent this report on re-creating the unique Pitman arm on the steering gear (one of the few pieces MIA in the 'pile' for the #50 that we acquired)<o></o></tt><tt><o></o></tt>.
<tt><o></o></tt><tt>Lance and Gregg:<o></o></tt>
<tt>Well I finally had luck getting the Pitman arm profile programmed into the mill. I have been fighting it since last Wednesday. On Saturday I was able to get it to run half way and it kept giving a fault message I checked and rechecked and could not find anything. Sunday I reset everything and ran it again and had the same problem. After checking with the machinist and programmer on Monday, he gave some tips. With those it ran one more step but still kept giving faults.<o></o></tt>
<tt>Well last night I checked all the dimension inputs for accuracy again and did not find anything so tonight I recalculated the dimensions at the location of the faults and I found a .005" difference from the calculated to what was on the print. I entered the new dimension and it ran the full profile on paper.<o></o></tt>
<tt>So if all goes well I will start cutting metal late Saturday when I get home or Sunday.<o></o></tt>
<tt>I will probably stop and get the steering gear one day after work this week or early next week. Hope things are going good on your end.<o></o></tt><tt>
Have a good rest of the week.<o></o></tt>
<tt>Take care,<o></o></tt>
<tt>Mike<o></o></tt>

 

A copy of my posting from the modified stock car thread.

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Just spoke to Marty Himes (The Himes Museum of Auto Racing Nostalgia .. here on Long Island, NY) and he advised me that the date for the Annual Show at the Historic Hallockville Farm -- Mattituck, Long Island, NY has been set.

The show will include antique cars, antique trucks, antique fire engines, antique tractors, antique industrial engines (such as the "hit & miss" ones used on farms & other applications) .. there even was some old military aircraft engines there .. and of course historical/nostalgia/antique RACE CARS of all sorts & from many eras.

Something else at that show (that I found fascinating) is the tractor pull contest that features real working farm tractors. The weight these everyday machines, that we pretty much take for granted, can pull is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING !!!!

If you have a race car that you'd like to show .. the guy to contact is Marty Himes. Drop me a Private Message & I'll give you his phone number (if you don't already have it).

The dates are Saturday & Sunday July 17th & 18th. MARK THEM ON YOUR CALENDAR.

It's a real fun and enjoyable way to spend a day or weekend in the country, to show your machine &/or just look around.

Even though they've been posted here before, I'll post just SOME things from last years show.
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Harold Seaman told me about this site.
http://racersreunion.ning.com/

In the OPEN WHEEL section, mixed among pictures of open wheel modified stock cars are many pictures of Indy roadsters, RE Indy cars, upright Indy cars, sprint cars (even one that was converted into a drag car) and midgets.

 

Can anyone identify the chap in this picture?

I copied the picture from this site ..
http://openwheelracersreunion.ning.com/
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An automotive version of the Ferguson tractor engine was released after WW2 in the British Triumph Mayflower and the Standard Vanguard.

My father had one of engines these in his Midget from '51 to around '55 . Initial problems involved big-end bearing failures, 'soft' crankshafts and a valve spring and retainer system that would fly apart if 'over-reved'. These issues were addressed in the later Triumph TR 2,3 & 4 engines.






There are some nice pics of a yellow vintage midget from NZ (see post #19 car 17 ) running one of these engines as well.

 

At the risk of not being accurate, especially with an Aussie or a Kiwi, I offer the following...

The Ford Ferguson tractor (8N) was so named because of the English Ferguson hydraulics that were applied to it through an agreement between the two companies, and sold world wide.

The engine was pure Ford and had nothing to do with Ferguson but was commonly referred to in U.S. midget applications as a Fergie. Originally a flat head four, with 2 intake ports and 4 exhaust ports on the right side of the block, 120 cubic inches.

For their 50th anniversary In 1953 Ford introduced the NAA or Jubilee to replace the 8N. This tractor had a OHV engine with 2 intake ports and 4 exhaust ports on the left side of the block, 134 cubic inches. I believe this would be the engine Gearguy is referring to in post #841 as evidenced by the photo.

The engine 88dary is referring to above, we did see in a few midgets here after some Triumph TR2's and 3's arrived in the salvage yards. Notice it has right hand porting and manifolding on the head. We called that a tractor engine because that was it's main use in England and had wet sleeves, robust rods and bearing journals and a hard crank. If you heard a rod bearing knocking soon enough, the crank was frequently not out of round, unlike all the other English sports car engines. That engine was 120 cubic inches and there was a big bore sleeve kit available to take it out to 132.

88dary...correct me if I'm wrong. The tractor was a Ferguson that was produced in England (and competed with Ford which now no longer had the coveted hydraulic system) after Henry Ford and Ferguson fell out of bed. The engine was pure Standard Motor Company which may have come to be called a Fergie down your way.

As I have posted previously, there were few suitable Domestic automobile engines produced post WWII suitable for the midgets prior to about 1960.
A few Import engines were used but some of the most suitable were banned such as the DOHC Alfa Romeo even though early models of it were only 96 cubic inches. The Triumph was a good choice, but banned in some organizations because of being Foreign.

 

After thoughts, further to the above...

There are three Fergie engines shown on Speedy Bill's Museum website.

http://www.museumofamericanspeed.com/Collections/Engines/E198.shtml

The most common was the Babe Stapp conversions that put an aluminum head on the engine, accessory drives for mag and dry sump were common, and of course manifold and headers. The example of this near me has a pair of Norden side draft carburettors which I have never seen before.

The Frank Brisko engine was all his aluminum block and head castings. I would be interested if anyone has entry or results list showing one of these running, perhaps even pre WWII. Brisko was also running a unique Offy-like 5 main bearing camless engine in 1940.

The F Head engine shown I have no idea or knowledge of it's creator.

Anyone know?

 

Phew, I did some googling....Tractor history is a whole other area in itself.

You are correct, but Ferguson also shipped 25,000 TE20 tractors to the USA before production of the TO20 in Detroit. (basically identical specs but with Delco electrics instead of Lucas.. and thats no bad thing).

The US built TO20 might have used a Continental not the Standard engine?? Were these Continentals used in midgets?. Anyone got specs or pics?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferguson_Company

http://www.ytmag.com/profiles/to20prof.htm

 

last year i travel to freyre (provincia de cordoba) 700km away to see a mini national midget meeting
i know one guy that race in cordoba whit his brother (leo collino) his father race too and his grandfahter too
after the race he invited us to his garage in freyre city long 11okm away fraom the track to eat a big "asado" (bbq for you) that its a most tipical food here on argentina good meet at grill (when you came in the future we visit some interesting racing places and you eat the beeter meet )
well : this uy told me about a team of sunchales (his city) gone to bs as when american racers come here down and search in his computer and givme a cd whit a lot of photos of him racin in cordoba in the actuallity photos of his phater and 2 specialphotos for us now have in this album
one of and old car of this days 1955 an other whit a big truck full of midget of sunchales ready to go to bs as for the meeting whit american racers and the porteños (bs as racers) (in the rest of argentina they call porteños a bs as people)
when i read the page that you send me of jack fox s book mighty midget hi mentioned a big track whit the midgets of sunchales and reminded me of that photo
i search them and i share to you if you send to yours frinds up there!!!!!!!!!!
i hope you enjoied
what a coincidens!!!!!!!!

your friend
leo
From my Argentine driver-to-be. I sent him scans of pages 218 thru 223 of Jack Fox's Mighty Midgets book so he could "fact check" it on the Argentine end. I think it is fair to say Argentina leads the world in midget transportation!
If I can ever get my scanner to do jpg instead tif I'll post those pages here along with "the rest of the story" on how the American cars got stuck south of the equator.

 

On the Internet I'm finding that apparently the Standard Engine was not ready when production of the tractor began and the Z120 Continental engine was used. It was a 120 cubic inch OHV configuration.

I suspect very few if any, were used in midgets just as the Ford OHV in the Fredrickson roadster that started this discussion was rare. We could put the Standard or Triumph TR3 in the same category and presume the weight of these basically Industrial engines was a significant detriment.

I do have a friend close by with a F162 Continental flat head 4 cylinder powered car he built in the late 50's that was bored out to 169 inches. It is a tube frame car but weighs 1050 lbs. dry. By contrast, my tube frame Studebaker 6 cylinder flat head weighs 912 pounds with water and oil, no fuel.

 

Jigger in last Midget to win 100 mile race.

 

Jigger drove the Frank Kater [Katerski] Hilegas-Buick V-8. Frank ran a Conoco station on 60th Street in West Allis, Wisconsin besides having a dance band. I used to stop in for advice on our Hamburger-Chevy II and to read his copy of National Speed Sport News.

The car was a bit on the heavy side as those Buick V-8s were sleeved down from 215 cubic inches to 160. In the mid-70s the tail got caved in so Frank "bobbed" it a bit and ran with a flattened back end.

I'm told Boyd Koneck Jr, who put our then 30 year old Hamburger in 6 trophy dashes during the 1976 Badger season, took a terrible ride in the venerable car some years later.

A side note, last summer I bought the #77 Ellis from the Norm Swartz estate, so numbered as Norm's tribute to his good friend Frank Kater. RIP guys, you left big shoes to fill.

 

Sometime in the relatively short history of the Super Midget Racing Club (SMRC) I believe that they ran a series of races on year on the Caribean island of Jamaica.

Can anyone tell me anything about &/or have any pictures of the series of races that were held there?

THANKS in advance.

 

I think the winner of that was Guy Ciccone in the family Midget, sorry I don't have more info

 

Suitable engines were always a problem in Australia too. The most common in the 40's & 50's were Ford 'A' & V8-60, Willys , Jeep SV & OHV, and the ocasional Chrysler, Continental Beacon, Studebaker plus various V-twin motorcycle engines.
The Vauxhall Vagabond 6cyl. (GM UK) & the Lea Francis were rare, but notable.

Post war was quite tough in Australia. We did not have the Boom generated by the Military/Industrial/Aerospace Complex
(instead, we had a bit of an Inferiority Complex).

We did however have the 6cyl. OHV 132ci (GM) Holden 'grey' motor, with development this proved a winner even against imported Offy's into the 60's.

In the early 50's these engines were almost unobtainable, there was something like a 2 year waiting list for New Holden cars.
Aub Cherry built one in 1951 from individual components purchased as replacement parts over a Spare Parts counter.

Great Years.

 

A couple academic questions...

Were the Model A's allowed to run stock displacement or did they need to be reduced?

I presume the Willy's & SV Jeep would be the 134. Was your reference to the OHV the F head 134 four cylinder or did you run the F161 six as well?

What Chrysler are you referring to and what was the size cylinders and valve arrangement of it and the Continental Beacon?

I presume the Vauxhaul Vagabond may have had a virtually identical engine to the Holden.

If there were such a thing as a "Make a Wish" program for semi healthy Senior Citizens, mine would be to move to Adelaide (have a pal there) bringing my Studebaker with me, and find a nice Holden powered car to restore while getting re-acquainted with the South Australia Vintage Speedcar bunch.

 

.....'Of all those great engines you guys "down under" have run, thanks to Bryan Cunneen and that Max Linklater car, the WHOLE world knows about that six-cylinder Holden!





http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=QyYxEMbndLo

 

I don't claim to be an expert, but the A Fords & a Fronty T that I have specs on were all under 200 c.i.
The F-head 4 cyl jeep engine would be correct but was listed in race progams as OHV (early hype!)

The first engine in my fathers car was a 4 cyl SV Chrysler (mid to late 20's). It was sleeved down, but I don't know the capacity.
Sleeving may have been done just to instal 'modern' cam-ground pistons.




And here is a pic of a pre-war car with a 6 cyl plymouth.



The Vauxhall would have been a very similar spec to the Holden but I doubt any parts would be interchangable. (No corporate global engineering.) Fully imported from England, therefore relatively expensive & not particularly common.

Adelaide is a nice part of the world.

Dad would tow the midget to Adelaide (500 miles) on Friday, race at Rowley Park Speedway, drive back to Geelong, change the Vanguard bigend bearings, drive to Melbourne (60 miles) and race Saturday night at Tracey's Speedway, Maribyrnong. Amazing how much energy you have in your 20's. It's his birthday next month, he will be 80 y.o. I'm re-building his car and plan to have it rolling & painted by then. I'll get off the Net & back in the shed.

cheers,

 

A Great piece of Action

 

.....'I've posted some of these before either here or over on TrackForum but, it's been about 48 years ago to-the-day that they were taken on the half-mile at Sacramento's Capital Speedway, so I thought I'd post them again especially for our good friends "down under" that haven't seen them before. I borrowed the slides from the Father of a friend of mine that I graduated from high school with who used to pit for Porter and Moe Goff on the 'Easter Egg' cars that were driven by little Mike McGreevy in both BCRA and USAC. 'From what I understand, 'Dyna-Mike' is still alive and well and living in Florida. Mike won the trophy dash that day and I'll post that over on the Trophy Girl thread on the H.A.M.B.

 

Well now that is a good looking picture! Neat to see all the guys wearing WHITES! unlike todays attire where some look pretty scruffy in the pit area?
Isnt that Frank Berlott bending over His 180 degree Crossfire V8 sixty midget just to the right of the easter egg car?
Den

 

Little Fauss,
Here is a pic of mike McGreevy as we saw him touring with Bob Tatersall. The car Mc Greevy drove was sold down here and has been restored by a Sydney vintage midget collector.

 

McReavy is using a Sam Browne in the above photo.

I would like to see some discussion, pro or con regarding their use specifically in a non roll bar early car and as in the case of the photo, a non caged roll bar car.

Also...

It appears Mike's belt is headed under his right armpit, not over the shoulder unless it is connecting to another strap over the shoulder and down to the hip. were there diferent styles?