Still Going Strong

Dean

Well-known Member
Last weekend was the annual street fair in my home town.

Though I no longer take in the festivities, I did go to the local "den" where past alumni of our now closed high school gather to reminisce.

While walking back to the car, I saw two carnival rides powered by four cylinder Ford gasoline industrial engines of the 50s, 60s, early 70s vintage. Not sure if 134, 172 or 192 CI.

When small, I well remember the operators repetitively gunning the engine before backing off to make the cars on the Tilt-a-Whirl spin better.

Both engines were performing as designed without smoke or oil leakage.

Dean
 
Brings back memories here too.
At our small town/county fair.
Only there they used AC engines.
Same radiator, tin and gas tank as our B.
I wouldn't be surprised if those old engines were still chugging along.
 
I too remember both AC and International power units powering the carnival rides when I was small. I was a bit surprised to recently find Ford engines powering some of the rides.

Dean
 
I remember "Red Seal" ( Continental ) power units with Twin Disc clutches. The ride operator would pull the long handle , and the ride would start ! And how about the giant Arc lights ... Weren't they actually Lincoln Welders burning those carbon rods ?
 
What makes it more amazing those carnival ride engines are on from 8 am to 12 p.m 6-7 days per week.
 
Local tree service guy near me has two tow behind chippers with 192's running them. No leaks or smoke, but he complains that he has to have the points fiddled with too often for his liking. I mentioned the pertronix EI kits to him, not sure if he followed up on that or not.
 
He's right Sean but this is a relatively recent problem caused by the difficulty in finding good quality contact sets that were once readily available just about anywhere.

Dean
 
The once common "search lights" were WWII surplus units probably bought for pennys on the dollar in the 1950s.

It was once common for a festival or even a "grand opening" of a store, to rent a search light to attract attention.

Most of the ones that I saw were powered by Detroit diesels.

Yes, they were carbon arc units with 6, 8, 10' or larger reflectors. Quite impressive, especially for a child.

Dean
 
I remember running the projector at a local theater when I was younger that used a carbon arc light. Those things are scary bright.
 
We have an old etnyre/littleford ( put together) liquid asphalt distribuitor truck. Originally had diesel burners but we converted them to propane. The power unit that turns the mixer and pump is an old red seal. Has a tractor supply repop carb on it.

We used to have a hay shredder/blower for seed n mulching backslopes, it had a ford industrial engine.

Sold that but still use the asphalt distributor.

I remember when we lifted the tank/bed from the original truck in the 80's ( bed is many many decades older ), and set the bed on a new ok cab n chassis.

We had the original truck and bed. The bed was setting on dimensional wood rail pads, that had probably 40? Years of tar on them. They were dry and had a couple soft spots, but the load bearing pieces were still good. Quite amazing!

I remember making leather gaskets for the spray bar sections, and the bar valves were just simple metal on metal hollow pins that rotated and let holes from the bar to the nozzle line up or not.
 

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