Merry Christmas

President: Eric Gleason 704 Case Street, The Dalles, Oregon, 97058 email: gleason@netcnct.net

Secretary/Treasurer/Editor: Pat Farrell, 6647 Bridgewater Lane, Sedro Woolley, WA 98284 360-856-1294 New e-mail rpfarrell@wavecable.com

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The NW Chapter of SACA newsletter is sent out the first week of each season of the year. Cost of our hardcopy newsletter is $5 a year. Cyberspace delivery is free to NW region SACA members.

Our mission is to perpetuate the use of the steam automobile and to share information pertaining to them.

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Events:

January 22-28, 2006 Centennial of the 127.659 mph Stanley land Speed record of January 26, 1906 Ormond Beach, Florida. Steam car tour and time trials. Contact the Stanley Museum at 207-265-2729 for more information.

Buckeye Steam Tour '06

Susan and I would like to extend a warm Buckeye welcome to all of you, and invite you to come steam with us next summer. Another Midwestern tour is in the serious planning stages for June 18 - June 23, 2006 located in the Amish country of Northern Ohio. Our base of operations will be in Berlin, which is about 75 minutes south of Cleveland.

There is more than a week's worth of activities to see and do in this area. Tentatively, we've thought about visiting Roscoe Village, a restored 1800's canal town, touring the famous Longaberger basket factory, viewing an antique car collection, visiting Warther's Museum of famous carvings, and enjoying a unique, truly old-fashioned hardware store. The gently rolling countryside is ideal for steaming, while still providing some interesting driving challenges. These are just some of the possible highlights that can be seen in the heart of Amish country. But this is not all. We already have a few additional surprises "under our bonnet" for you!

The area offers a large number of quiet paved country roads to explore, which will allow you some time to enjoy the small, well-kept Amish farms. Good food is bountiful. Awesome shopping possibilities for antiques, quilts, and handmade wooden furniture are just a few of the amenities you can experience.

At this time, we're not asking for any firm commitments, but we would like to have a feel for your level of interest in a Midwestern tour in Ohio. Your response will give us some general numbers that will help us plan for the logistics of this tour. Please let us know if you would be likely to come to the Buckeye State next year or any of your friends. You and/or they can also e-mail this information to us. If you have any suggestions, advice, or something you would particularly like to do, see, or have on this tour, please let us know. Thanks!!

Scott and Susan Cruse, 963 Woodcreek Dr., Milford, OH 45150-1528

(513) 248-0963 E-mail: susanc@one.net

From our Chapter president Eric Gleason: After a fun and successful workshop up at the Farrell's I thought that I had most of the bugs worked out of my 1918 Stanley 735 touring car. I guess I was kind of right about that, but those last few bugs have turned out to be pretty tenacious. I fixed the last of the leaky valves and was tinkering with the Empire burner, trying to get a bit more heat out of it. When I got the car it came with a bunch of jets of various sizes so I thought I would experiment some and put a larger jet in the burner.

I called up Bob Ullrich and he came over for a pleasant drive to the Maryhill Museum for their annual car show. We stopped for some fuel on our way out and things seemed to be steaming along okay, just a bit sluggish, which I figured would get better when everything warmed up. Well, we made it there although it was kind of a slow 20 miles at about 15 mph. We opened up the hood when we got there and things looked a bit sooty, must have been burning a bit on the rich side. Well, we lined the Stanley up with the other cars and spent a pleasant day on the grass looking at all the other cars as well as answering a ton of steam car questions. By about 3:30 we got ready to head back but the show organizers said we should stick around for the awards, turned out we won best prewar and best of show, should probably just have won "oddest in show" because there were some really great cars there. Well, we fired it up and managed not to get the fire in the wrong spot while all those folks we watching, went to drive off and blew the back end of the superheater out of its fitting! That was kind of dramatic! I didn't feel so silly for carrying that floor jack and my burner lowering plate after all. We dropped the hot burner, put the end of the superheater back in the 3000 lb hydraulic fitting that I had used to put it together and retightened everything. Got it all back together and steamed off with our fingers crossed and the cell number of a guy with a trailer that said he would rescue us if we needed it.

Well, it was still rather slow going but more downhill than it was on the way out. About 10 miles out of town we lost fuel pressure, it was burning very rich and we had gone through about 10 gallons of fuel. Lucky thing I was with Chris Roberts on the Monroe tour when he ran out of fuel and I knew about making it back on pilot fuel. That made the rest of out trip even slower; we stopped by the first gas station, after about 5 miles, only to find out that they too were out of gas! We made it back just as it was getting dark and a cold rain started to fall.

Having survived that adventure I have spent the last few months trying to get the car so the superheater stays in place and the car will cruise at more than 15 mph. To that end I spent a fun weekend cleaning the soot from the flues (next time I will do it from the top!) and now have the burner all apart. The superheater managed to come loose again after about 20 miles of driving even after tightened it with the biggest wrenches I could find with cheater bars and all. So anyway, I will keep plugging away at it with the goal of getting a reasonably reliable car that will cruise at about 40 mph. Hope that is not asking too much!

So it is getting to be time to start thinking about our steam car workshop for 2006. I talked some to Bob Ullrich about this and if the interest is there we could host it in The Dalles and Mosier, Oregon. I would like to know when a good time for the meet would be? The spring is quite pleasant with plenty of wildflowers blooming in April and May before it starts to get too hot. Also the Northwest Steam Society meet is going to be in mid-August in St. Helens, Oregon, some 100 miles down stream if we want to plan something in conjunction with it. Anyway, let me know your thoughts, Gleason@netcnct.net (541) 296-1802)

Happy Steaming, Eric

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Jim Keith wrote with several questions: Do I know of any other Mountain wagons?  Editor: With wood frames, I know of about least 10.  With steel frames, I know of only 5 others.  These are all of 1915, model 825, 30 hp

Ray C. Doughty Trust in Colorado

Bob Sullivan's in Washington

Tom Marshall's in Delaware (model 820)

Don Bourdon's in Vermont

Bob Collings in Stow, Maine

For 1916, our model 826 is the sole survivor.

There is a rumor that a 1916 flush sided Mountain wagon that still exists in a collection in the East.  Bob Sullivan has reported seeing it.

    From photographs taken by Bob Sullivan and by me of the last surviving steel framed Mt. Wagons, and the dimensions taken from Bob Sullivan's original body, I was able to duplicate a perfect Mt. Wagon body for our model 826.  Unfortunately, there never was a perfect Mt. Wagon body built.  They were all black smithed out with a hammer on an anvil like an old hose drawn work wagon.  With modern machine shop equipment, I was able to improve on that.  I have found that there are builder differences between every Mt. Wagon body. Presently, Bob Sullivan has his model 825 Mt. Wagon at Don Bourdon's. Don is restoring both his and Bob's at the same time.

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Editor: No need to switch my Maxwell pilots out for the John Packard pilot yet, because my Maxwell pilots are working perfect.  They take a little more heat to get them hot, but once they are going, they work reliably well for me.

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Reader: How big is the main fuel vaporizer's hot dog? Editor:   The main fuel vaporizer heat sink is often called the "hot dog". I always slot it with a parting tool with ringed fins the full length to give it more surface area for quicker warm up from the pilot. The hot dog is of mild steel; 1 1/2" diameter and 6" long.  The main fuel vaporizer is 1/4" black pipe about 6' 2" long for kerosene and about 5' long for gasoline.  I use Blazick non clogging jets and in the last two years, I have not had to prick my jets for any carbon build up.   If you make your main fuel vaporizer too long, too much heat will "crack" the fuel into carbon.  I occasionally look at my jets and clean them as preventive maintenance.

    Instead of diesel, I try to always use kerosene or stove oil as it doesn't smell as bad.  When kerosene isn't available, I will add unleaded gasoline to my mix of fuel.  Unleaded fuel is more of a fire hazard for me than kerosene.  As a last resort against vapor lock in the fuel lines, I will add diesel fuel to the main fuel tank.  In an emergency, I have used Chevron unleaded in my pilot fuel system and it has also worked well.  Coleman is my first choice in pilot fuel and for constant burning (24 hours), I use a little less than 1 gallon of Coleman fuel a day.

    The size of your jets and the fuel pressure go hand in had to how much fuel is being delivered to your burner.  Main fuel pressures from 100 pounds to 140 pounds are used.  Small jet sizes of #57 to as big as #53 are presently being used by many.  I have Stanley non condensing fuel filters and I would guess that they slow down the fuel delivery a bit.  I clean the fuel filters out about once a year. 

    For the super heater, I have had to go to 1/2" schedule 40 stainless steel pipe because it takes the heat well without burning out.  It doesn't absorb the heat as well as black pipe, but it lasts and lasts.  How long to make it? As much as pipe you can get in over the fire.  In my Mt. Wagon with a 26" boiler, I was able to get 12' of super heater over the fire.  I fastened legs onto the super heater to keep it off of the grate.  I do not weld anything to the super heater.  It has been my experience, where ever you weld to the super heater is where a hole will first develop.  The original Stanley super heaters were made of schedule 80 black pipe.

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Editor: I try to keep the hard copies to a minimum for distribution to only our northwest non computer members and that costs them $5 a year.  You receive your cyberspace newsletter every quarter.  If you are not already, please join the Steam Automobile Club of America, Inc.  They send out an excellent bi-monthly steam car magazine. They also need any steam articles that you may write.

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Christopher Roberts writes:  On my last trip in my 1919 I successfully after 10 miles blew the exhaust hoses apart. Upon repairing them I was replacing a hose on the final piece of pipe for the exhaust section. I discovered a lot of oil had still traveled from the engine, through the condenser although there is an oil separator. Was the oil there in the condenser before? Possibly, however in the discovery of the oil after the condenser, I am more confident than ever that non-condensing is really the way to go. Any oil in the system will eventually get into the water tank and be pumped into the boiler, shortening it's life and also causing foaming and poor
steaming. It seems that to me the inconvenience of getting water every 15 miles or so is well worth the other in constantly cleaning the water
tank and trying to get all the oil out of the boiler. CWR

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Art Hart writes: Stanley slide valves.  They are a mystery to both Charlie Johnson and I and we have both spent hours over the phone measuring slide valve faces and blocks in the past with no answers and lots of different dimensions.  However, we do know that the short end of the valve goes on the head end not on the crank end.  This probably has something to do with the fact that if you look at the piston action you will find that the piston is at the middle of it's stroke when the connecting rod is at right angles with a line drawn from the counterweight stub to the crank centerline and not when that line is perpendicular to the frame rods.  As a result it takes a longer portion of the crankshaft rotation for the piston to travel from the middle of the cylinder to the bottom than it does from the middle to the top.  Weird, huh?  More food for thought!  We know if you make the valve faces even, the engine will run poorly.  Norm Shanklin did this with a new block from John Goold on his 30hp car that ran horribly.  Charlie made "proper" valves with uneven face widths and it runs great now. Good luck,
Art Hart

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Peter Barrett: Dec 5, '05 I just got word that Pete Barrett died in his sleep on Saturday night.
More details later.   Bob Noble

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Rob Reilly writes: Things have been busy here - I have made four trips back to Delaware this year (three driving, one flying) to work with Tom Marshall and his Steam Team on setting up the nonprofit organization which will take over his home and collections in cooperation with the Delaware State Parks Dept.  The group is called The Friends of Auburn Heights Preserve.  The State of Delaware will own the real estate ("Auburn Heights", consisting of the large Victorian house built by Tom's grandfather in 1897, the carriage house and the museum building as well as the five acres immediately surrounding it).  The State has also acquired an additional 200 acres adjoining the property which will become a nature preserve (hence the "Preserve" in the "Friends of Auburn Heights Preserve").

The Friends of Auburn Heights preserve is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization which grew from the Steam Team that Tom assembled several years ago.  We have over 75 members now, and they operate and maintain the cars (15 steam, 2 gas and 1 electric) and the miniature steam railroad under Tom's supervision.  The plan is that Tom's collection of cars and trains would go to the Friends, which would lease the museum building and carriage house/shop building from the State for a nominal sum once Tom and Ruth are no longer living on the property.  The Friends would operate the steamers on days when the property is open to the public in addition to taking them to local and not-so-local tours and gatherings.

It's been a lot of work getting things organized so far, but I think we are making good progress.  In fact, the Friends have acquired their first "non-Marshall" car, a very nice original 1901 Mobile steamer that belonged to Alexis DuPont.  And the group just hired its first employee (me) to serve as Executive Director starting in February.  I'll still keep our home here but will spend about 2/3 of my time in Delaware.  There will be lots to do... fundraising, organization of the volunteers, publicity, collections management, etc.  From what I have seen so far, there's enough there to keep me busy two or three times over!

Take a look at our website, www.AuburnHeights.org - the fellows have done a really nice job putting it together.

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Editor: Bob Sullivan has been busy this fall buying and selling Stanleys. After the dust has settled, Bob ended up "keeping" a neat looking original 1907 Stanley H-5 20 hp Gentleman's speedy roadster. It is a fast touring car that seats two. It has a 3 5/8 X 5 inch dry engine that is intended for those who wish to hit up a speed of 65 to 70 miles per hour on a good, safe road. The car has a water capacity (26 gallons) for 40 to 50 miles and a gasoline capacity for 125 to 150 miles. The total weight of the car is about 1,600 pounds, and it has a wheel base of 100 inches. Alan Kelso wrote: Find attached a picture of Bob Sullivan's H5. It's special to me for a couple of reasons, Carl Amsley's first Stanley and the first Stanley I had a ride in. Carl said later
that the H5 that went to Stanley Ellis. The H5 was in Delaware where I picked it up and brought it here to get running. The H5 hasn't been run in many years. It's taking major cleaning of the fuel system. The H5 should be in the greater northwest after the first of the year.

Coburn Benson writes: Hi, These are in random order. The H5 was also previously owned by Curt Whitehouse, Dr Terry Bennett,  Seal Cove Auto Museum[R Paine], T C Marshall, Andy Anderson, and
others. Sarah Stanley drove the car at Terry's auction, at Hampton NH... 

Figure 1

Alan Kelso writes:
December 18^th, 2005. The first H5 ride, cold, but was worth it.

Editor: No news from Idaho yet for the dates on the 2006 Western national steam car tour. We will pass on the information to you as soon as we get it.