History Most unique engine use!!

Almost O/T engine; The slant six Mopar was used in a number of "oddball" situations.
Motive power for Hagie high-wheeled crop sprayers.
White used them in LP fueled fork trucks
Clark Cortez motor home from the early-mid 60's (also had a unique manual-trans front wheel drive system)
Have seen pics of aircraft tugs with them as powerplant
Stationary power for compressors and generators.
I have heard of them used for fruit and nut tree shakers.

Roger

 

Model A engines used to power carnival ride, airplanes.

 

Not that old, but a while back saw a built 360 mopar in a wood chipper. The kind they feed whole trees into. When the OE 360 bit the dust the owner wanted more power so put it back together with the usual street/strip modifications right down to custom valve covers. Had a choppy idle. lol.

 

What is the story on the aluminum flatheads that were made for aviation use? Were these motors actually produced just for airplanes? Along with Ardun heads and Kinmont brakes, I think they need to be added to the HOLY GRAIL of speed parts!

 

I use this 57 392 just to turn my friends green with envy!

 

Back in the early sixties we installed an A/C "chiller". A big machine used to cool water to cool the 10 story office building. It's big enough to have an International V8 mounted on top of it. It ran off of natural gas. The unit was mounted in the penthouse machine room with the exhaust piped outside. It's the only one that I've ever seen. One of the welders stole the Packard 440 wires to use on his car.

 

We put a 350 SBC on a John Deere combine. They were on Masseys, but our JD was unique. Bought a '26 Chrysler four car at a sale, it was fitted with a bucket grain loader driven off the rear drums with flat belts. Remove the belts, let down the jacks, and drive 'er away! Cool, for the 'fifties.

 

Somewhere floating around the web is a video of Don Garlits hemi powered air-raid siren. He fires if up and turns on the siren, pretty neat.

 

mopar flathead 6's were used in Massey Furgeson Combines, Cockshutt and Custom tractors, Clark airport tugs, and other clark equipment, including aux power carts.

318's are used in lots of irrigation pumps, and in knodding donkeys in oil fields.

 

This has been posted here before, but I think this is an intersting use for an engine.

 

A small block Chevy powered the rollers at Dallas International Motor Speedway. The rollers were started spinning with a long handle that engaged the clutch, if I remember correctly.

 

I heard of an old timer around here that had a HD45 hooked up to an electric motor.
The 45 was his compressor head

 

Model A engines were used to power the rope tows at Michigan’s Caberfae Peaks, the first ski resort to operate in the Midwest and the third in the nation, behind Sun Valley, Idaho (#1) and Stowe, Vermont (#2). Caberfae opened in 1938. I used to ski at there in the 50’s. Back then it was all rope tows, and each one powered by a Model A engine. The ropes were driven by a drum on the transmission output shaft. Pretty crude by today’s standards No safety stuff other than the operator running the engine.

 

this is about the wildest application I ever saw for a v-8, a Chainsaw.




On the other end of the spectrum its a hit and miss engine powering a huge crank type ice cream freezer at the swap meet.

 

1. When i was a kid my Granfather had a T pickup (wish I had it now), but he would jack up one rear wheel and let it idle, then he would put the handle of the hand crank Ice Cream churn in the wooden spokes and it made ice cream after church. The wheel went around at just the right speed for the handle to follow the spokes. Funny, we all took turns turning the crank but when it became his turn, this is what he did.

2. I am originally from WVa and I remember seeing a sawmill powered by a 6 cylinder engine. When I asked what kind I was told it was a 51 Studebaker.

3. My 32 Brookville has a 354 industrial engine that was either in a siren, fan or pump.

Grampa's pick up became popular at all the Odd Fellows picknicks after that.

Bill

 

Oh yes one more....

Friend had a Cadillac V 16 with a glass top on a stand that he used as a coffee table in the 70's.. What a beautiful engine!

Bill

 

They were originally powered by the original Pierce Arrow motors from those sedans. Later they got rebuilt with Wayne school bus bodies (keeping the original hood!) and I believe GMC 6-cylinder engines. Most of them still exist today.


We had a sawmill power plant for a belt driven setup that is the front half of a '32 Packard Light Eight sedan. Which, if it was the Light Eight I'd hate to see the senior, the frame was close to a foot tall and the half frame, motor, trans, cowl, hood, grille with no suspension or anything else, weighed close to as much as an entire newer car (3800 lbs +).

We also have a '37 Plymouth they rigged up as a portable sawmill - it has big truck rims welded to the drums, the back half of the body is cut off, and the sawblade added on the back right side of the frame - to drive, you let the air out of the tire. To run the saw, you inflate the tire up to full pressure and jack the wheel up off the ground.

Somewhere too there is a lawn roller made out of a '25 or so Chevy, that has an extra radiator added on the front; it's rigged up to go backwards I think, steering from the rear using the car's front axle.

 

btt