The Old Cart (2007)

OK, I made a big mistake.  It might be more forgivable if I could claim not to have known any better, but I did.  It only took me 10 years to make it right. In retrospect, it is hard to understand why I let it go on like this for that long.  The short of the matter is, I built a non-original wooden cart frame for my 1-1/2HP Model M, which wasn’t really that bad, but I put casters under it.  All four corners.  I got them at Harbor Freight (the price was right) and when I did, I didn’t think to get two fixed and two castering wheels.  I got home with four, castering, heavy-duty, hard rubber tired dolly wheels.

This is the kind of thing you do and then reassure yourself that it wasn’t really that bad because it works fine in the garage and driveway.  Sure, it’s a little stubborn to steer in one particular direction, but man it can be maneuvered like crazy to fit under the workbench for stowage!    And with four castering wheels, there wasn’t any need  for (or place to put) a towbar or tongue on it to pull it around with.  I rolled it around the garage, looked it over, then rolled it out into the driveway and started the engine up.  I might even have had a cool, barley based malted beverage while I watched it rhythmically chugging along.  Nice work!

Then it was show day.  I decided to take it to Chippokes for the annual Steam and Gas Engine Show.  I got a trailer from the Navy MWR gear rental joint at Scott Center and backed it into the driveway to load up.  Plenty of room on it, and it had a drop ramp on the back.  I rolled the engine over to the bottom of the ramp.  Then I kind of looked at it for a minute and thought, “How the heck am I going to push this thing up the ramp?”  I scratched my smooth, shiny head and thought a little bit, and realized pushing really ain’t gonna work.  Pulling might, maybe with the aid of some manila line and a couple of sheaves. But I didn’t have any sheaves.

So, I spun it around (easy, since it had four casters) and put it front-side-backwards up to the ramp and got on the ramp.  I reached down and grabbed a couple of handfulls of flywheels and rared back and HEAVED that thing up on the ramp and kept pulling hard until I had it up on the deck of the trailer.  Well, it wasn’t really that hard after all.  One big grunt, a heave, a couple of strong, steady pulls and reedy sounding forced fart later and it was all over with.  Now how to tie the plagued thing down?

This called for some ingenuity, and I think I hit it right dead-nuts on.  I had a bunch of 2×4 scraps leftover from some work around the house, and I used them as chocks for the wheels.  Once I had the engine in place on the trailer, I turned two casters one way and two the other way so the corners were turned 90 degrees from each other, and then used two blocks on each to lock them in that way.  Quicker than you can say Bob’s your auntie, there she was, snug as a fly on flypaper.  Then a couple of ratchet tie-down straps across her this way and that and she was all shipshape and ready to get underway.  I liked it so much, I used the same wheel blocks on the other three engines, and pretty much still do to this day.

We got to the show alright.  It was a nice hot weekend, somewhere near 100 degrees, which was a bit hotter than normal for the first weekend after Memorial Day around here.  Being a first-timer, I got lucky and drew a great spot just outside of the shade of a pretty pitiful looking cedar tree right up the hill from the lawnmower tractor pull.  I got the first three engines off the trailer without difficulty, but then had to ease this one off somehow.  I figured it would be just the reverse of the loading process, so I maneuvered it toward the ramp, coaxing each castering corner of the cart to go in the same direction – toward the ramp.  Seems like a simple thing when you think about it, but every little groove, knot and seam grabbed the wheels and had them turning every which way.  Surely once I get it on the ramp, gravity will take over and she’ll track straight on down.  Nope.  Same thing happened on that expanded metal ramp, and the bottom end wanted to go one way and then the other, so with me up there holding 350 pounds of Model M by the flywheels and leaning back to slow the speed of disaster, I managed to get it landed, right side up and mostly right-way to.

Luckily, Chippokes has a pretty hard packed gravel drive around the display area.  I was able to manhandle the engine around on that without too much difficulty, what with gravity not providing too much assistance.  The real trouble didn’t start until I got her off the gravel and onto the grass.  Now those wheels dug in like plows.  After prompting and prying them to align themselves in the general direction I needed to go, I managed grunt the thing over to a good spot for the show.  Boy did she dig in while running, though.  Every stroke it vibrated and dug in a little more solidly.  When packing up to leave, I ended up getting help from a few folks.  We managed to pry the wheels out of the rut holes with a shovel and then four of us got it up the ramp and back on the trailer for the return.

OK, so that paints the picture of how I came to make the original mistake and how I had to deal with it.  I did not have the proper cart or wheels to put things right, and they were expensive.  Since I did not go to more than about two or three shows a year, I just lived with it.  Sure, it was a pain, but not all that much once you got used to it.  But I did go on a quest for cart parts.  Over the intervening ten years I managed to acquire some wheels pretty cheaply.  I was hoping for some 8″ wheels, but ended up with something closer to 6″ diameter.  A little small, but still better that what I was using.  I found two at Coolspring one year, and then found two more another year at the same fall swap meet at Coolspring.  Then I needed the bolsters.  I actually was going to hammer something out in the shop, kind of my own custom, home-cobbled bolsters, but I just never got around to it.  Finally, I bought some cast iron bolsters online, although not the classic McCormick M type, but they’ll do.

The New Cart (2017)

I had thought about making a proper replica cart, but since I didn’t spring for the repro Model M bolsters and I didn’t have the right wheels anyway, decided on re-using the same wooden frame I had originally built using leftover bits of 4 x 4 from other projects.  It was a solid frame and just needed better wheels.  The plan was to remove the hated casters, bolt on some planks for the new bolsters and then put everything together.  The wheels are about 1/4 inch different in size, but the bolsters were a little different front to back, so that worked out about even.

The bolsters I bought were designed to use 3/4″ iron pipe.  Since one pair of the wheels had 3/4″ bore hubs and the other had 5/8″ bore hubs, they would need axle rods, so I figured I’d run the axles through the iron pipe and use washers and cotter pins on the ends to hold the wheels on.  I would have to come up with a steering arrangement and I decided to use my own home-brew version of the tongue used on Economy carts.

I started out with by using a temporary dolly to hold the engine while I worked on the cart.  I figured if I could just slide it off onto a platform about the same height it would be a lot better than having to pick it up off the floor to re-mount it.  It worked great.  After I unbolted the engine from the frame, I was able to slide it right over to the temporary platform without much trouble.  Then I took the cart frame and flopped it over on its back so I could work on it.  I loosened the lag bolts holding the casters and looked for my 3/8″ socket speed handle.  Nowhere to be found.  I can’t recall the last time I used it,  but it sure would have been handy.  I ended up using a socket adapter on my cordless drill to finish spinning them all out.

Then I trimmed a couple of pieces of 2 x 6 deck planking to use to mount the bolsters on.  I matched the holes on the front piece to the holes that were already in the frame for the casters so it would bolt right in place.  The front steering bolster mounted to the center of this plank.  In the rear, I drilled new holes, since the rear bolsters attached right to the outer frame, bolted straight through.  All worked out nicely.  Then I took the 3/4 pipe and set it in place to check things out.  All looked good, and with the amount of rise on the bolsters, the front wheels would fit under the frame when steering, so you can get plenty of steering angle.

I measured a couple of other carts to get a better idea of good axle length, and cut my axle rods to the right length.  I used the portable bandsaw I bought at auction for $5 to do the work.  Boy, that’s a heck of a lot easier than hand sawing it!  Then I drilled holes in the ends of each for the cotter pins to hold the wheels on.  I would be using washers to separate the wheels from the 3/4 pipe on one side and from the cotter pin on the outside.  I slid the wheels on with the washers in place and then measured to get the right length to cut the pipe.  Then measured and marked the pipe and cut it to fit.  I also marked the center of the pipe used for the front axle so it would be easy to line up in the bolster.

Now I mounted the pipe in the bolsters and tightened everything down.  I checked the front for proper swing and clearance and then put the axle rods and wheels on and turned the cart back over onto the new wheels.  It looked good!  I ran out of time for that day, so I saved making the towing handle for another day.  I slid the engine back onto the frame and bolted everything back down, making sure I had not done anything that interfered with the engine operation.  Then a rolled it around some to see how things went.  I was very happy with the result.

Towing Handle

After completing the cart improvements and letting them age in the garage for a few weeks, I had some time to work on the towing/steering handle.  I had decided to use a modified Economy design, with 7/16″ rod attached to the axles and run out front and bolted to a wooden handle.  On the axle end, an eye would be bent into the end of the rod, and on the other end the rod would be threaded to bolt onto the handle.

I measured and cut two 7/16″ rods to 40 inches.  then I chucked them in the lathe and threaded three inches to accept a 7/16-14 nut.  Since I only have a mini bench lathe, this was kind of fun, having to provide some means of supporting the 30 inches of rod that stuck out the back side of the headstock.  No worries, since I was turning it very slowly for threading anyway.  The threads came out nice and clean, and there was plenty of room for a pair of nuts and washers to hold a handle in place.

Next, I jacked the front of the engine cart up and put a stack of 2 x 4 scraps under it to hold the front wheels of the floor.  I loosened the U-bolts holding the axle in place and after taking off one wheel, removed the axle, including the iron pipe.  I then measured and marked the pipe for cutting to shorten it enough to allow clearance for the 7/16 rod eye around the axle. I took my mini chop saw and cut it to length.  That would allow me to place the eye in the 7/16 rod on the axel, using the pipe as an inside shoulder, and a washer between the eye in the rod and the wheel.  The then wheel would go on, with a washer on the end and the cotter pin to hold it all together.

I took the threaded rod and measured back enough for the eye.  I don’t have any blacksmithing tools, unless you count a simple ball peen hammer and a short piece of large iron square stock to substitute for an anvil.  That would have to do for this project.  Without a forge, I used my acetylene torch to heat the rod nice and hot, and beat the end into an acute “L” shape.  Then a little more heating and beating and I had a decent hook on the end.  Using a leftover piece of the 3/4″ axle as a mandrel, I heated the rod one more time and then finished closing the eye around the mandrel.  I’ll take a second here to remind all that once you pick up a piece of 3/4″ round stock that has absorbed secondary heat from the work being hammered around it, it does not take long to decide you have finished looking at it.  You may even utter a few “not safe for family” words along the way to that decision.

OK, now having fashioned eyes in the ends of the two rods, it was time to fit things up and see how they work.  I reassembled the axle just to make sure it went back together properly and with decent clearances.  Everything looked good!  Now for the wooden handle.  I had a piece of an old broken shovel handle in the shop that I was holding onto in case I needed to large handle for a file or rasp.  I cut a piece of that off to use, and bored holes through it to accept the threaded ends of the 7/16 rod.  I made the holes at an angle to match the angle the rod took on the way from the axles to the handle, and once bolted on, that looked pretty decent too.  I re-mounted the 3/4″ pipe on the cart bolster and re-assembled the whole axle affair with the new handle on it.  Great!

Except for one thing: the handle worked fine when out in front of the cart, but it would not clear the corners of the cart frame when lifted up, so I could not stow the handle in the vertical position.  I took everything apart again and decided to heat the rods up and put a bend in them to clear the cart frame.  After checking things out and measuring, I marked each rod where it needed to bend, making care to note which way to bend them.  After heating them to a nice red, I bent each in the vise with the same angle.  I cooled them off and put everything together again, and this time everything looked and work great!

Now, I have my engine on a non-spec cart with non-spec wheels and a home-brewed towing bale.  It isn’t the very best arrangement, but it is miles ahead of trying to push the thing around on 4 hard rubber casters.  I am looking forward to going to Chippokes and other shows this year; this time with a much more manageable engine!