Old tools for old car repair-Smith Motor Compressor

I'm almost finished restoring this 1949 Gordon Smith Air Compressor.
It uses a 1931 Ford engine.
Its good for about 87 CFM

 

That is EXTREMELY cool.
I've thought about some day making something similar, but putting a PTO-driven generator off the back of it, making an emergency generator.

-Brad

 

Looks great, Bruce! You should post a "before" pic for contrast!

 

'before' picture?
Oh yeah

 

So does it run on two cylinders and pump with the other two? Check valves in the head? Neat!!

 

Yes, number 1 and 4 run while cylinders 2 and 3 compress air,
Gordon Smith must have been a pretty smart old guy
All he did was put his designed head on existing engines
At one time he used a slant six Chrysler engine
For a while he used a Lincoln 460 cubic inch engine with one bank of four cylinders firing and the other bank compressing air

 

What's with the goofy K&N stickers on an otherwise original looking piece?

 

Now what do you do with it?

 

Still kickin myself for selling my compressor head, i wanted to put it in the back of my 51 F-3 truck and have a real shop truck

 

Wow that's really cool

 

that's pretty darn fancy. never seen a compressor with whitewalls before. needs some shiney hubcaps now. maybe an dropped and chromed axle. louver the hood.

so was this whole thing made by some factory or did people buy the compressor head and build thier own?

 

and an alternator too damnit

 

Hi Nads.

Wheres Germ when we need him to explain to the newcomers what you can do with an air compressor on wheels that puts out 87 CFM without needing to be plugged into the wall?

 

that's pretty cool! - I know what i could do with it!

 

Is there any one that has parts or diagrams on the wiring and airlines?

 

I used to be in the Automotive Equipment Business, my shop air is a 1932 Ingersoll-rand Compressor that we pulled out of a Dealership years ago

Kicker is that they paid me to Remove it.

 

Those are so cool. I just bought a running one today but don't have it home yet. It's more of a homebrew with a 29 commercial grill shell. But it does have a Mallory distributor.