They "Self-Propelled" A Stationalry Steam Engine

They "Self-Propelled" A Stationalry Steam Engine TRACTORS Antiques 23-1-23 It gets a lot of attention at antique tractor shows," says Paul Dotterer, Mill Hall, Pa., who, along with his friend Steve Grieb, converted a stationary 1923 Farquhar steam engine into a self-propelled model that rides on rubber tires and even has power steering. The old steam engine was originally mounted on four steel wheels and had a hitch on front so it could be moved from place to place by horses. The boiler, powered by either wood or coal, drove a pair of big pulleys that were used to operate threshers, sawmills, etc. To self-propel it they used the gas engine, rear axle and wheels, and drive components off an old self-propelled tomato harvester. It has 11.25 by 24 rear wheels. The front axle and 6.00 by 16 front wheels are off an old truck. They built an operator platform on back and mounted a steering wheel. Power steering is provided by an orbit motor connected to a hydraulic cylinder. The cylinder mounts under the front axle and controls a pair of steering rods on the front axle. The biggest challenge was designing a way to automatically keep the boiler level on hillsides. The problem was that the rig's steam dome was mounted at the end of the boiler, not the center as on most other steam engines, so on hills the water often couldn't get into the steam dome. They solved the probem by building a telescoping hydraulic cylinder that mounts under the boiler and uses the hydraulic control system off an old Deere sidehill combine to operate it. The hydraulic control system was originally mounted crosswise to keep the combine level on hillsides. They rotated it 90 degrees to face forward. A switch automatically activates an electric-controlled hydraulic valve which extends or retracts the cylinder to keep the boiler level. "We take it to two or three antique tractor shows a year. Some people don't realize what they're looking at. Others who know their equipment can recognize that a lot of effort and thought went into building it. It has nine steam whistles on it. People often want to know if I can play them a tune on the whistles. I tell them that I will as soon as I can get the music written. I bought the steam whistles at a sale. We also use it to belt-drive a sawmill at shows. "It'll go up to 5 mph which is faster than we want to drive it on the road. The first time I drove it was to a parade 5 miles away. I wasn't used to driving it and was in a higher gear going down hill than I should've been. I was lucky that I didn't upset it. It uses about 50 gallons of water per mile. "I bought the steam engine 10 years ago. It was a big, heavy unit that required a good set of horses to pull it. The boiler has a 9 1/2-in. bore and 12-in. stroke. There's a 2 1/2-in. dia. steam line going to the cylinder so it has a lot of power. We can feed either wood or coal into the back end of the boiler. We store wood on top of the operator platform and put coal in a bin under the platform. "It took a lot of engineering to get the drive system operating. A control lever is used to open or close a valve that leads to the hydraulic pump, which controls how fast we can go in each gear. It has four forward speeds and one reverse." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Paul Dotterer, Rt. 3, Box 467D, Mill Hall, Pa. 17751 (ph 717 726-6720 or 3946) or Steve Grieb, Dunkle & Grieb, Inc., RD 2, Box 14, Centre Hall, Pa. 16828 (ph 814 364-1421 or 9109).

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