I live in a two-bedroomed apartment in London. No garage, no workshop. I have no idea of what you're talking about most of the time. Your videos are fascinating and I watch every one. Thank you.
That is so neat that you rebuild and not trash it for money, I am working on a 1963 gen with a chevy 283 V8 20.000 watt gen, This was used at sawmill in Minnesota and sat in Barn all of its life. It has no Rust or any dents just the paint is fade , but all came off with air blower, Now it has primer on everything, Rebuilt the chevy motor and it runs like a dream. By late Summer I will have it all done, This is lots of fun to play with and will be put back in to operation in my shop..... Love your video....
We the restores know how hard a Job can be. and how long it can take. so we appreciate the videos more than you think. It keeps us busy when we can't work on ours at the time. And it gives us ideas. Thank you for the videos to bad you aren't closer to me
Well I think I speak for everyone when we say we appreciate the videos you put out for us. I'll watch anything no matter how long it takes for you to make
It's a great day in every collector's life when it goes from collecting to hoarder of collectibles and i'm pretty sure you're there . Congratulations Mike 😉👍👍🇺🇸
Most interesting! 1947 - the year I was born, so two ancient artifacts, the gen set and me! I too am reasonably sound but with some rust around the lower edges!
Love the videos you make. Can't get enough of the nice and calm explanations and the enthusiasm you show while working on these nice old machines. Greetings from Norway.
Just a quick one to say THANK YOU for doing the video's I really appreciate them and your time to do them. I envy you folks in the area in which you live as, because of the industrial history, there is so much available in old Iron (tools etc). I live on Vancouver Island BC Canada and here we have a very limited access to old or new. Thanks again. Rod
Another cool project. I met you at the tuckahoe show yesterday. Nice generator you had there. Also liked the Witte engine. My name is Whitt I was there with 2 of my cousins. Thanks for all the interesting videos you post!
He sources a lot of his old Cat stuff from Florin Tractor parts in Sacramento , Calif. Friend of mine had an old D-2 that we got a lot of parts for therel!
The first Onan genset has Art Deco design, and its strange how many American designers took to this design in the 40's and 50's. There were the buildings, trains, cars, refrigerators etc. It looks beautiful.
We appreciate the effort that you put into making your videos Mike. I'd much rather see you take a bit of time between making a video than for you to get burned out from RU-vid and stop all together. Take breaks when you need to, we'll be here when you come back. Nice rescue from the weeds there by the way. Thumbs up!
I worked on many of those old Detroit 2 cycle diesel powered generators. V8’s, in-line 6, 4 cylinder and 3 cylinder units. They run great even when they are tired. But they are big air polluters. Lots of blue smoke when they load. Very loud and hard starting without a block heater or starting fluid spray.
When you get it running there is an old style safety cutout called a hot wire relay. What it does is as the engine runs if you lose oil pressure or over heat the hot wire relay is swichted on to heat up a thermo resister. Then in turn closes a switch to activate the air box flapper stalling the diesel. That old hot wire relay can fail and keep the air box flapper closed. I would replace it with a on delay relay.
1947 Onan, wow thats 1 year older than me.. Maybe i got bits going rusty so handle with care eh..lol.. Would love to see that big old flathead running again, from the era flatheads won the war.. Thanks for your videos.. Ian..UK.
Two stroke Detroits are awesome. Like another commenter said Bus Grease Monkey has a ton of knowledge of them if you run into any issues. If it turns it'll run though!
If you follow Squatch253, you know his "go to" shop for CAT parts is Florin Tractor (in Sacramento, CA). I used to live just a mile or so from them and spent many an afternoon looking through their shop. My Dad's favorite lumber store for years was right across the street.
I saw on the Facebook Kohler Generator users group a guy posted he has an old generator in a barn he inherited and doesn’t want the generator It’s a 4kw runs at 1800 rpms. Thought of you. Love your videos.
I watch anything you put out Mike. I appreciate the time you spend doing the videos because what I want to watch is interesting content, which you have, thus is why I have watched you for a few years now. I know you're not one of those people that can post every day or week because you work a day job and have other work to do. Used to be stuff like that all around where I live and I managed to save some of it, but the scrap man beat me to most things. At least you didn't have far to go this time! Keep doing what you do Mike and have fun!
Good to see a video from you Mike!! Love the styling on that Onan! Massive Rust down low is not to surprising when I saw it was sitting in a bunches of Pine Needles. They make a pretty decent slow acid "soup" as they decompose that takes out metal if given enough time..30 years seems like enough. Not as road salt but right up there. Get RoadKing going on the body work and paint and you get the engine and electrics going and you've got a super winner!!!
Charles Kettering, GM Detroit Diesel ,Zephyr diesel Electric Train.. AC Delco first Electric start lights Freon for Air conditioner refrigerators. Changed the world.
I love the Detroits 2 strokes. Just make sure the injectors aren't stuck. If it turns it will run. I have 5 of them!! Squatch253 could probably help you on the Cat parts or at least give you direction. The art deco era stuff is so cool. I have a 1947 GM Greyhound bus. Thanks!
The cooler was deemed by Caterpillar to be unnecessary to the correct operation of the engine. Later serial numbers did not have the cooler, and Cat provided guidance for deleting the oil cooler lines. I still have the coolers on my D2 (both the 5U with the D311 and the 3J with the D3400) just for originality's sake
My dad has a cat Excavator and it is good to see old cat generators and people restoring them I must admit the old stuff like the caterpillar generators must be so much better quality than the new stuff my dad‘s got a caterpillar excavator and he absolutely loves it This type of thing would be what my pop and dad would be interested in I wish I could have a caterpillar or a Cummens generator think about it I would be so happy if I could afford to buy a generator because if I had one I would be able to power every thing in a power outage I know for a fact that hospitals have to have backup electricity because I think they are. Mission critical so hospitals‘s have to be on backup generator
First of all, I totally understand that it takes a whole lot more time to do your work and create a video, but I will watch whatever you put out. Second, you have a very cool neighbor. Third, I have never thought of a generator to be "sexy", until I saw this one. I would love to see a complete resto on her!
Mike, since you mentioned engine show season, I wanted to plug the upcoming Tuckahoe Steam & Gas Association show in Easton Maryland. It starts Thursday July 8 and runs through Sunday July 11th. I believe you and RoadKing will be there so look forward to seeing you again. Make sure you stop by the machine shop Museum.
Inside the control box looked Military Green. Maybe surplus unused bought by the plant that ran it 3 years. Appears it may have been well cared for. Hope it will run some day.
Would you be interested in a small onan 5cck generator out of a school. I work for a school district in the Pittsburgh area and will be pulling it out of one of our buildings soon. Cummins came out and said it couldn’t be repaired due to lack of parts availability but I feel like you could get it going. If your inlet me know and we can exchange contact info. Thanks for another great video
Whatever happens, i wouldn't throw it in the junk. In a worst-case scenario ebay or putting it in a garden shed until someone buys it is always an option.
Nice old Onan Mike! I may be wrong, but with the extra heat shields, etc., it may have been set up for arctic or some far north application, to keep warm air going to the carb. Surprised it had fairly clean oil and antifreeze in it. That may be an easy starter there if the valves aren't stuck. You can roll it over carefully by hand and find out for sure. Much easier to pull the head than replace a broken camshaft!😁
2:16 Detroit 2-stroke? Rotates? Itt'l run fine. Mind the racks so it don't run away on ya, but I'd say building a badass big boy's gokart around it would be boss. Maybe a 4wd kart using 3-phase traction motors and a generator head on the engine like locomotives are done?
Hopefully your replacement Ford starter came with a heat shield. If it didn't and your running OEM exhaust manifold you might want to mount the heat shield sooner than later!
Twin Disc in Racine Wisconsin can probably identify the date of manufacture on the clutch on the Detroit 4-71. I suspect the engine was built in the 1950s because it has the tag instead of being stamped in the block. In the 70s Detroit started putting tags in a slot on the valve cover. In the 60s the serial numbers were longer and stamped into the engine block.
Glad to see your first job was to hose it down. One thing that really annoys me about some "restoration" videos is when they try to dismantle things without cleaning, possibly missing screws under all the years of dirt and grease.
Definitely looks like a continental motor in the Onan. There was one of those streamlined ones on ebay a while ago. There is a company called Van Ness engineering that makes a lot of engine parts for continental flatheads. They mainly serve the Graymarine marine conversion engines but most of the engine parts are the same for the industrial VS marine engines...
Mike, maybe you can come across a non fuctioning truck reefer unit for some year round working comfort in your work area and then some.. looking fwd to all of your projects!
