It's a 163 cubic inch Continental engine. Possibly one of the most popular engines ever made. Used in a lot of forklifts, pumps, and farm machinery as well as welders. Lots of information and parts available on the Web, E-Bay, etc. as well as local dealers, including Caterpillar (forklifts).
Huh? Can you explain this? Do you buy cylinders with an agreement to refund the money if you bring back an empty or what? What's wrong with swapping? I've done it since the '80s no problem.
Just don't look at the crappy fenders and dryrotted tires ..........
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I'm $300 poorer, but a little bit happier.
Now, to clean it up and get it to run. From the block, the plates say:
F 136 Ser #124455 Code 4365
On machine: Ser # A 907348 Miller Trailer Ser 3 HE 752632
Going to Google now to see if I can find info using these numbers. In the meantime, anyone who can help me get there, please post, as I'll be online this eve and checking messages.
I've just gotten some rather bad news in another department today, so I guess the Big Guy gives and takes.
Congratulations, looks like you just got very lucky, some would call you a robber.
It looks like circa 1980>. The alternators can be problematic and are expensive, plan on replacing with something more common when it fails. These engines were used in some forklifts and were equipped with twin groove crank and pump pulleys, if you can find these parts it makes it pretty easy to mount an air brake compressor above the engine under the hood.
Paint correct Lincoln grey and buy correct new decals and it will look like a new machine. I do not know if these machines are still sold new with gas power but they are still very common in the local patch and IIRC are going for $5-7,000 used and new would be $10-12,000. Mounted on a good clean rig they go for $80-120./hr. + consumables.
Check the regulators with detergent solution carefully for leakage, expect to rebuild.
Be cool, careful and smart and the bottles may save you the full purchase price in rental savings. I suggest you may want to repaint them an appropriate color. Always pick up the full bottles before returning the empties, never try to 'exchange' them at time of purchasing new full ones. Read between the lines.
Do this right and you will never need another machine.
But...some of the new machines are lighter and more fuel efficient and more versatile for TIG and MIG but I think you will have a hard time finding a better machine for pipe roots. This is maybe THE 'classic' rig welder's pipe machine, it will give you credibility on any jobsite, but you will be expected to know how to use it. I would be interested (and you should find out) if this is a copper machine or if it has aluminum in the generator.
It's Erwin, and you didn't say any more in that thread than you did in this one. You can say until you're blue in the face that it's better to go BUY an owner cylinder and then go back a few days later and try to SELL BACK an empty, but to me that sounds like a MONEY LOSING DEAL.
Owner cylinders are easy to tell apart from rentals. If you're in doubt, ask. You are making it 10X harder than it really is. Life is hard enough.
IMHO, above all else, be cool, careful and smart. 'DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL.'
This rig probably hasn't moved in five years or more, so they
Do you have the bill of sale TO the original owner? and the complete paper trail TO 'the old guy'? Keep ALL paperwork. The bill of sale FROM 'the old guy' is probably not worth much as many depots will just claim them as 'strays'. See my reply to Grant Irwin in this thread and read the link in Google groups
Above all else, be cool, careful and smart. 'DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL.'
It was not long ago that some ignorant kook almost killed this and many other usenet groups with DOS type spam posts. aioe.cjb.net was the suggested strategy that made usenet usable for me. I have found it to be the best news server I have ever used and it is free. It is almost completely free of kook spam. Just out of interest I just logged on to my regular ISPs news server and note that it is still full of junk spam although it does not seem to be as bad as it was. I will be sticking with aioe.cjb.net YMMV
Life is funny. When I went to pick it up this afternoon, I had a chance to talk to the old man. Probably pushing eighty and looking every day of it. He said it had been sitting around for years, and it was running when he parked it. He had a stroke, then Parkinson's set in. When I first called him, he said, "Oh, you probably don't want all this old stuff." I asked him what he had, and after about ten words, he had my interest. This afternoon, come to find out, he worked with my stepdad out of the Tulsa OK Pipeliner Welders Local. We talked about some welding, and places we'd been and work we'd done. I asked him if he was sure on the price, and he said, "It don't even run." He didn't even open the rusty treasure chest, just said it was a rusty tool box. I thought it was empty until I got it home. I think he had personal reasons for wanting it out of his driveway. Either way, he was the one who set the price, and I was lucky to be the guy to get it. I bade him God Bless when we parted and told him it was going to a good home.
Downloaded the manual, and sent Lincoln the SN and code and asked them about it. The old man said he had bought it used in 1985, and the rain flaps were not with it then.
The cylinders are going to be interesting. I own cylinders, and lease others. I went to lease because in my new town, refills on owner cylinders are up to 2.5x the cost where you lease them. Breaking it down over five years, it's cheaper to lease. But I'm going to take these in and see what they say. This rig probably hasn't moved in five years or more, so they will need hydroed. But I'll just wheel them in, say the minimal, and see what happens. That will be at the store where I exchange my owner cylinders. The old guy said he owned them, and I have a bill of sale. For whatever that's worth.
I'm sorry. You have me confused with someone who cares. What in the world difference could the time on my post make? I set it. I set it to adjust automatically. I must live in a small slice of Utah that just doesn't change with the master poohbah of Internet controlled clocks.
I would not go around telling people what to do, but like Mike, I am a freak and keep accurate time on all my computers, using NTP. I do not like it if my computers are off by more than 0.1 second.
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