.JPG "1917 Amanco 'Hired Man' 2 1/4hp hit-and-miss engine")
It looks normal enough...
The other day someone mentioned “hit and miss” engines. Having never heard this term, I was all like, “What is that?” So, I went on a journey through the bowels of the interwebs reading about and watching Youtubes video of these bizarre creations.
Upon opening the Wikipedia page I saw engines that looked old, but in no way unusual. So, I read the words. Seriously, people in the 1800s had some interesting and innovative ideas on engine control. Rather than use a throttle to control the engine speed, the engine would fire then coast and then fire again when needed to maintain a constant speed. The intake valve was held closed by a spring and would only open when sufficient vacuum was drawn in the cylinder. The exhaust valve would be held open, thus preventing a vacuum in the cylinder, until a governor would close it when the engine speed dropped too low. A large flywheel would maintain the engine speed between combustion strokes.
These engines were the workhorse engines on farms and in factories in the early 1900s. They were very simple, with a simple needle-valve controlling the fuel/air mixture and a water tank in the cylinder head for cooling. Lubrication was often manual. They were used to power pumps, run saws, run generators and even used in early washing machines. In fact, some of the major manufacturers of these engines were companies like International Harvester, John Deere and Maytag.
There were some drawbacks. They were very heavy due to the flywheel. A 6 hp engine could easily weigh 1,000 lb. Also, they had open crankcases. This made maintenance and lubrication easier, but also made a mess as oil and grease were flung from the crankshaft. Even worse, dirt and debris could get in the moving bits of the drivetrain causing premature wear. Finally, they were done in with more sophisticated designs that were much lighter and self-lubricating.
Click the video below to hear one running. It’s definitely a unique sound and a bizarre engine.
[Image Credit: Peter Jewell via Wikimedia]
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Imagine that chuff-chuff-chuff-chuff-POP sound times [some large multiple] and you have the basic soundtrack for an antique machinery show in the Dakotas, just add 2-cylinder Deeres and 4-cylinder Farmalls as needed for seasoning.
Now all I can think of is Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
I prefer my antique engine shows with a dash of steam traction engine hiss.
Actually, someone should take engineerd to a good show. A Rumley will blow his mind – an oil-cooled, water-injected, carbureted diesel with electric ignition? Of course! How else would you do it?
I think an antique engine show would be a lot of fun.
Those engines (at least I think they are hit or miss engines, maybe just really low RPM regular engines) seem to be popular with some of the fair food vendors around here. They are usually hooked to some sort of ice cream churn or popcorn/kettle corn machine.
I watched a video of three of them hooked to ice cream makers. It was very bizarre. And very cool.
I used to love watching these every year at the county fair. I could always count on a bunch of displays and demonstrations. They are strangely hypnotic and can fascinate folks like us for hours, until suddenly you realize you can't stand it anymore and have to flee from the sound…
And you could have them in any color you want, as long as it's red.
I see what you did there, Henry. I think in those days each manufacturer had its own colors. While green and red were popular, I've seen, black, blue and even yellow ones…
I'm pretty sure some of the early airplane engines counted as hit and missers.
The Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome has one of them but for the life of me I can't remember which one.
http://www.oldrhinebeck.org/
Still searching…The pilot had to applied his finger on the 'contact' button to get the engine going, then let off it as it coasted…