Well it's a holiday weekend here in NZ and I was doing some work at my mother's house and didn't feel like attacking anything too difficult in the garage. Now that I finally have a V8 project I decided I'd haul out the motor my late father had put aside for his retirement project.
The story is that this motor is a Canadian 99hp motor that lived it's life until 1988 in a stationary fire pump built by the Colonial Motor Company where it was a backup pump at the local hospital board. My father worked as a mechanic there and he serviced and test ran it himself once or twice a year from 1972 until it was decommissioned and replaced.
When he aqcuired it then, he replaced rings and bearings and did the valves, then brought it home and I remember as a kid that he ran it for about 5-10 seconds before putting under the bench until he could find something worthy to put it in.
So today is the first time in a long time it's been allowed out from under the bench, although I've regularly turned it over a revolution or two so it didn't freeze up. I found all the old gauges from the fire pump, and the hour meter reads 124.5 hours. I understand it was built in 1943 (for WW2?), and the hospital got it straight after (I still have the operators manual for the pump), but it never fought a fire there.
What I'm wondering from those with more experience than me is what I should expect to have to do before I attempt to fire it up again and put it in my 41 pickup? Bearing in mind it was pulled down and overhauled 23 years ago, it's not like it was yesterday, but I don't want to be going overboard with it. I have a friend with a borescope I intend to have a look inside with - what should I be looking for in particular with this motor? It's obviously been sitting dry with no water in the water jackets.
For interest's sake it seems to have some sort of governer or something underneath the carburetor - I'm not really sure what it is, maybe someone here is more familiar with these than me? The heads both have C81A cast into them and the carburetor is Model 21-29. Not sure what else might date this more accurately, but from what I remember the 1943 date was thought to be fairly accurate.
I don't want to make a meal of this motor, so what can I do to make sure it's good to go before I crank the starter for the first time? Thanks in advance...
The story is that this motor is a Canadian 99hp motor that lived it's life until 1988 in a stationary fire pump built by the Colonial Motor Company where it was a backup pump at the local hospital board. My father worked as a mechanic there and he serviced and test ran it himself once or twice a year from 1972 until it was decommissioned and replaced.
When he aqcuired it then, he replaced rings and bearings and did the valves, then brought it home and I remember as a kid that he ran it for about 5-10 seconds before putting under the bench until he could find something worthy to put it in.
So today is the first time in a long time it's been allowed out from under the bench, although I've regularly turned it over a revolution or two so it didn't freeze up. I found all the old gauges from the fire pump, and the hour meter reads 124.5 hours. I understand it was built in 1943 (for WW2?), and the hospital got it straight after (I still have the operators manual for the pump), but it never fought a fire there.
What I'm wondering from those with more experience than me is what I should expect to have to do before I attempt to fire it up again and put it in my 41 pickup? Bearing in mind it was pulled down and overhauled 23 years ago, it's not like it was yesterday, but I don't want to be going overboard with it. I have a friend with a borescope I intend to have a look inside with - what should I be looking for in particular with this motor? It's obviously been sitting dry with no water in the water jackets.
For interest's sake it seems to have some sort of governer or something underneath the carburetor - I'm not really sure what it is, maybe someone here is more familiar with these than me? The heads both have C81A cast into them and the carburetor is Model 21-29. Not sure what else might date this more accurately, but from what I remember the 1943 date was thought to be fairly accurate.
I don't want to make a meal of this motor, so what can I do to make sure it's good to go before I crank the starter for the first time? Thanks in advance...
