Hit and Miss Engines Running Three at a Time

Attractive Older Dudes Start Three Vintage Engines at One Time

Today the center of international news was on Plainfield Wisconsin, home of Ed Gein, where the annual engine show took place. This has turned into a premier outing for anyone with any sense of history and the love of gasoline fumes. Yahoos from far and wide bring in their old iron engines, fiddle fart with them, and if lucky fire those suckers up.

Most engines are prewar, that would be the last real war that made any sense being WWII, and as a result many are made of cast iron and weigh about one hundred pounds per horse power, maybe 200Lbs as my 3 horse weighs in at some 600Lbs. These jewels provided power on the many farms that used to exist around the American hinterland. Most of the farms now grow soy and corn in rotation and are managed by dudes in distant lands or on Wall Street. As a result old farmers and other deranged individuals ( remember the book Wisconsin Death Trip) get together throughout the summer and run old farm things while trying to remember when we used to touch the land.

While there are some great old farm machinery, like the Rumley and the Cockshutt tractors, and of course the 2 cylinder John Deeres, there are also small singled cylindered stationary engines. These are our attraction and why we go to these fantastic outings.

 Probably, most importantly, we go to meet other wackos who are also attracted to such nonsense---Ed Gein was not there, but there were many great characters(non from Wall Street) which provided us with knowledge and character sketches for my next novel. Mostly, we play with motors.

This is where the two attractive dudes come in, that would be Jeff, my brother, and me. Today the high point was the event of us actually getting all three of our motors going at one time with no fires and no uncontrolled explosions.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDPw7G4djJE&feature=em-upload_owner

 While it is true the Little Jumbo is a pile of shit and rust, it did run and when we removed a 20 thousandth from the rod bearing, it quit rattling uncontrollably. The Paige is our pride and joy because nobody else has one. It runs for 10 minutes and then quits for no reason other than to piss me off.

The Associated, Chore Boy, or is it a Hired Man, did well after I realized I was missing an ignition wire, but it does have a spring wire that likes to come off. In the end, all ran at one time and left us very full of ourselves and much the admiration of almost no one even though Ann thought we were real cool. Sorry no one we know made it as the event rivals any lame-ass trip to New York or Rosholt---best outfit there was from Rosholt, actually. It was a fantastic fire engine that would scare the piss out of any arson and rattled and spit fire as well as shake the ground for hundreds of yards.

Low point was no beer and the stinking, smoking, two stroke Maytag wash machine engines as seen above. Great greasyy fries though.