Over at a customers yard the other day doing a puncture on her tractor. She asked if two tatty old engines under the bench were any use or should they be tipped.
JAP single cylinder four stroke "industrial engines I think. With a pink Lodge spark plug in the top and a simple points set-up (magneto?) on a gear drive from the crank to bring it at right angles to the crankshaft. Simple side-draft carb. Great big flywheel and I guess a handle to crank start. One looks complete and might run. The other looks identical but is missing cylinder barrel, piston and carb.
Wonder what they were for and do I really need them cluttering up the workshop..or should they just go to the tip?
David
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David Contact:
Richard Adamek
oldenginehouse@btopenworld.com
oldenginehouse.users.btopenworld.com/oeh.htm
is the website and though he is mostly a Steam collector he can put you into contact with JAP collectors I am sure.
They are not for the tip I would think... these days there are folks out there who collect just about anything you can think of from Beer mats to different sorts of barbed wire
~Randolph Lee
Nantucket island U.S.A.
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They were probably used to power a saw bench, pump or milling machinery, I would think they are collectible and deserve some TLC and restoration.
Eleanor
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Hello David
Curious -- and slightly sad -- that both your respondents to date are from the other side of the pond.
I'd agree with what both of them say. If you can't be bothered with the JAPs yourself (and I'd imagine that a combination of both engines, using the second as a donor for the first, might make a handsome conversation piece when visitors like MW and myself came to visit), then you can bet that some other Stationary Engine gricer will travel hundreds of miles to collect them. I can probably put you in touch with at least one or two.
Martyn
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We had a > Stationary Engine gricer
in our street. the engine ran well with a lovely purring sound.
It was mounted in a 2cv with jammed gearbox and collapsing metalwork.
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Hello Martyn
I\'ve got a JAP stationary engine that needs a good home. It was recently used to power a Bamford saw bench but I didn\'t have much use for it, so the \"outfit\" is now dismantled. I\'m sure many will be horrified to know that the bench will soon become a very attractive garden table, which leaves a very servicable engine and robust (blinking heavy) flat bed, redundant.
Frankly, I don\'t know what to do and this is my first attempt to part company with them. I\'m wary of advertising and getting all and sundry having a root around my house. I know it\'s only worth as much as someone wants to pay for it, but I don\'t want to give it away. And I\'m certainly not going to chuck it. Any idea of a fair price? Know anyone who\'d come to Nottinghamshire and take a look?
Ginger
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David. J.A.Prestwich made engines for all sorts of applications. Also, of course, many motorcycles of the 20's and 30's (especially speedway models) used JAP engines. A long time ago, I saw a "Factors" catalogue which advertised Ruston and JAP engines for many farm type applications where power would not have been available. If your engines are water cooled, possibly with no radiator connections but just a hefty, thermo syphon water jacket, could they have been supplied for general farm use, possibly water pumping etc ? I am sure that you will find a good home for them and, as other have said, there are collectors who would be more than interested in them. At all costs they should be saved from the tip.
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OK many thanks all. So that's another project for me then!
Use? Mounted in the back of the Land Rover as a unique donkey engine starter perhaps.
I've got a finished job to take back to the good lady so I think the old dealer phrase "I'll get those out of you way my love, no charge" will have to get an outing.
David
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Put an advert in Exchange and Mart and they will be snapped up in no time.
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David,
Eleanor is probably right. I seem to remember from my 'tater pickin' days one local farmer having a sileage pump driven by JAP engine.
Well worth restoring I think.
Kevin...
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If you want to tip them I will come and collect. I dont know what they are but anything that has pink Lodge plugs in is worth saving.
Email me and I will take a day off work to collect them.
Bill
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Hey! Me too!
Bill - you have the knackered one? or shall we toss a coin?
Bet DW will hold onto them like gold coins..... ;-)
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Mention of the JAP engine brings back some happy memories for me. My grandad had a little boat for lobster fishing back in the sixties and he bought a second hand JAP as an 'inboard' motor. It was a reliable enough little thing - but not much puff so when a friend offered to sell him a better engine he jumped at the chance.
The 'better' one turned out to be an auxiliary engine from a Catalina (?) flying boat! As a child I can remember being terrified at the thing when my dad and grandad were testing it out in the garage. Blue flames came out of the exhaust! Apparently they never solved the problem of cooling it - despite rigging up all sorts of fans and things. It never did get installed in the boat and I suspect that if it had, that little lobster boat might have taken wings! Awesome engine!
Graeme
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I wonder if DW ever collected these relics?
Do tell!
groups.msn.com/honestjohn - Pictures say a thousand words.....
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Someone on a railway engineering forum was looking for a JAP piston the other day for a V-twin.
rg
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I've got a cultivator called a "British Anzani Motor Hoe", vintage 1947, powered by a small JAP engine. I found it abandoned in a hedge and restored it. It has an updraught carburettor and centrifugal clutch. For its size it is incredibly powerful - with the back half of a tricycle attached it will pull an adult up a fair incline.
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DL,
Nipped round to DW's workshop and there they sit!
As described in first post...
Two apparently identical single cyl air cooled engines of about 500cc. One looks complete apart from magneto. Other is missing head and barrel. Both been dry stored and turn over in a nice oily way. They have different arrangements bolted onto the "crankcase", one seems to have a bellhousing and the other just a flywheel.
I think one may be off your machine Cliff.
If anyone could post images to the HJ photo website I'll mail them to you.
Any thoughts on a future for them?
M.M
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Dizzy,if you are there...
Wickham inspection trollies use Jap v-twins.
As you are fairly conveniently located to M.M. maybe these will be of use to someboday at N.V.R.
For everyone else, the Wickham Trolley is akin to a "railway go-kart", powered by a large V-twin, ridiculous power to weight ratio, and a top speed of 70mph+..which felt more like 140mph due to the low driving position. If you saw "The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery", one of these features in the "chase".
Massively off-topic, but posted in the spirit of "the mechanical brotherhood"
rg
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At the recent Hanbury Steam Rally (Held near Droitwich) there was a whole section devoted to theses types of engines which had been restored.
There were approximately 20 on display and were powering items ranging from water pumps to small flour grinding mills.
So yes it appears there are people out there who collect and restore these types of engines.
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We still have an old 2-stroke lawnmower powered by a single piston JAP engine. It's a Nash Boudicea, an amazing example of simplistic engineering, with hardwood rollers front and rear. It's over 40 years old. It doesn't get used anymore but we keep it as a bit of old history and every year I start it up.
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