OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Collectors Corner Pictures of Antique Equipment Vintage Hit 'N' Miss Engines What kinds do you have?

Does anyone else have any Hit N Miss engines?

Please explain what a Hit N Miss engine is? i'm only a dumb aussie

You can see my Homemade engine running in this video, the reason they are called hit and miss is because it Fires and then misses several times before the governor kicks in and makes the engine fire again. This is done by a trip mechinism hooked to the push rod for the exhaust valve.

Hi Jkwidener,

nice engine. I remember seeing a fair few of these in Wauchope's Timbertown in NSW when I was little. It's still open now but I think most of the old machine have since been remover and sold to recover costs.

Am glad to see your can of coke didn't spill all over it lol.

Haven't seen another one since. What are they mainly used for?

Nice video, it seems to be more miss than hit

I found the video was excellent and I hope that more will follow soon from the moderators.

Im sure a few more New members will chime in with Tons of pictures and videos. But untill then you can check out 2 more videos here on my youtube homepage www.youtube.com/jkwidener

And you can see tons more at this link.. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=miss+engine

These engines were used for a large variety of things like grinding corn and mixing cement "I have a cement mixer in my video page" and washing clothes and alot of other farm and home uses..

hi all,

jk you'll recognize me from the stak, i've also got some videos on youtube go to youtube.com and search for theenginekid which is my user name nand you see the videos of my engines and others i have found while cruising the tube,

jordan

I have a 5 hp Lister petrol engine from 1928, and a Southern Cross Diesel which runs a jack pump from my bore. The front yard also boasts an Allchin Traction Engine which will never run again but makes a statement about the industrial revolution rather than thye agrarian one with German Hay wagons.

Doug,

Can you post some pictures so that everyone can see what you have as we are trying to get this new area up and running.

I have a Lister here, single cyl, could be as new as an 80's model.

Was going to rebuild it for the old mans bore, but stuff him, he can go buy his own. Im going to fix the motor up, i was going to look at mounting it on the old McPhearson lathe i have here.


The old man has an old rotary hoe, its got a mark 25 Villiers on it, need a carb for that if anyone has one.

Bob.

I had a 2 cylinder Lister (ST2) direct-coupled to an 8.5 kVA generator on my farm (engine gave 12 hp at 1500 RPM). I bought it more or less as scrap, and spent time making a set of manifolds, crank-handle, time-delay for the decompressor, etc, and de-rusting the cylinder sleeves so it could rotate. It was a lovely engine in some ways - it handled running my 220 amp stick-welder at maximum current completely comfortably, not sagging noticeably when I struck the arc - but the engine was way too hard to start in cool or cold weather, and far too noisy (air-cooled direct injection diesel). On the other hand as long as you didn't run it for long periods without load, it would last forever with total reliability. It was really interesting to see it running at full load, then stop in about one revolution when I accidentally shorted the generator output. Most have been considerable current through the carbon brushes for a while there.

Not having a use for a generator afterwards, I just left it installed when I sold the farm. I hope the new owner appreciated it, but he probably didn't.

If your engine was 1980s, I'm guessing it would be an ST1. It was replaced by the TS1, but I don't recall exactly when that happened. The STs were 625 cc per cylinder.

Bob,you can still get parts from villiers direct-england.i have a mk4 which i will mount on my compressor...ken

I dont have a hit and miss engine but do own a villiers mk20 I pulled from a scrap metal pile last year. When I found it it was seized but got it to turn easily by just cleaning the dirt out of between the flywheel and engine case.

Not sure Grumpy. It was replaced with a Honda pump on water cart about 15 or more years ago. So it could be older. My mate had it and was going to turf it. Still has the pump housing with it. I havent tried to start it as i am not sure what direction it rotates in and apparently it was running but a bit sad. So i was going to give it some love. Currently on my welding bench in the shed taking up space with a few covers and the manifolds off it.

I found the plate with the info in it but have not checked it out yet.

@Mower man, the old boy got a price and i think he pooped his pants. Not sure how it works with the Villers the Mk this and that, but its an old Mk25 with an updraft carb and its brass or something. For christmas last year i gave the old fella some Mk25 parts books and service manuals i bought from the UK on eBay. He still has his nose in them on boxing day. lol. He will sort it, the contraption its on is about 2 steps short of suicide to operate.

Normally Listers have an extension on the camshaft, sticking out through the timing cover. The extension has a keyway on it, and the engines come with a special two-handed crank-handle that has a spring-loaded pin that engages in the keyway. You slide on the handle, turn it clockwise until the pin engages, release the smoke stop on the injection pump so it will over-fuel during starting, flip the decompression lever, turn the crank clockwise as hard as you can for ten turns or so, then flip the decompressor while continuing to crank as hard as you can. When it starts, you pull the crank off the spinning camshaft, and push the cut-off on the injection pump back down to re-engage the smoke stop. In warm weather it is a few seconds of hard work, but it fires right up. In cold weather, there is a ritual involving injecting a measured amount of engine oil into the intake pipe before you do all that. If it's a two-cylinder 1.25 litre like mine, you will collapse with a heart attack before it actually starts. I whimped out and fitted a starter motor for cold weather starting. Second-hand it cost three times as much as I'd paid for the engine and generator.

The Lister plate will give the model number and the rated power and speed, quoting the British Standard procedure under which it gives that power.

Parts for Listers are unbelievably expensive - don't throw any away, you'll end up repairing them rather than replacing them.

Gooday Engine People, Joined these forums for the mowers - lol Didn't realise we had engines on here too. Over the years I have owned about 200 stationary engines - still have about thirty that have not been started for some time at our local museum. In the shed here at home I have (in various stages of restoration - or lack of it) a Felix c 1913, a Ferro c1908, small 32v Delco lighting plant and a sick 110v one as well. A pre 1920 5hp Fuller & Johnson in parts on a pallet, c1911 Westinghouse 1.75hp side shaft once run on gas in England, 4hp Jelbart (teens), and some others. Used to write for the Australian magazine (The Old Machinery Mart or T.O.M.M.) until 2000 when I had a ticker attack. Nowadays the engines are too heavy and I have ventured into collecting other things in my dotage.
I will endeavour to place a few photographs of the engines here from time to time. Will be leaving for West Australia in a couple of weeks to view the National Historic Machinery Association's rally south of Perth - and should have some nice pics from that later.

Stationary

Hi Stationary,

As you will see from the dates on the posts, we haven't had much activity in the Antique Engines forum - we need to have a quorum of interested people to make it happen. I hope you will turn out to be the one more person we needed to get a regular series of posts going.

Hi Stationary, I echo grumpy's thought's there and would really like to see this topic go ahead. Looking forward to seeing your pics when you upload them.

I know very little about them , but am heading up to Macksville this weekend as I believe there should be a few of them at the Rusty Iron Rally ,along with a heck of a lot of other machinery .
I reckon that this could be a good show , might learn a thing or two .

Here are some engines I have at home.
All throttle governed engines.

1. 2hp Lister D type fourstroke on a two stand shearing or crutching plant.


2. 1908 Ferro engine thought to be about 7hp twostroke boat motor converted to a stationary engine with a flyball governor acting on the carburettor.


3. 1920s Delco 32 volt lighting plant engine - this is the smallest of the line and has a fuel tank under the generator.


4. 4.5hp Horwood-Bagshaw c1925-ish petrol/kerosene engine, a copy of the 1919 Fairbanks,Morse engine.


Stationary

Is that a petrol Lister?

Yes Grumpy, runs on standard petrol.
Stationary

G'day engine people,

where do I start?

I have hit&miss ... Cooper, Sundex.
I have throttle governed ... Rosebery, Sundex, Sunshine, FMZ.
I have ... Villiers, ILO-Rockwell, Precision, Witte (passed on to son).

Cooper hit&miss

Cheers,
All
ps: hope I did that all right.

Hi All, and how good is it to see someone post in the Vintage hit & miss area....what a ripper!!
on a great stationary engine there mate, and it brings back plenty of memories from when I was a kid on my Uncles farm....

I've got this, a Bamfords EGK4. 4BHP @ 800 rpm.




Here's how it was when I got it. I made the transport for it myself, including the steel wheels.

Hey thats nice, I would like to own something like that one day when funds and space permits...

And a block and tackle, winch, and a good trailer!!!! hahaha

Weighs about 300 kg, and 34 inches high!

Thanks Joe.

That's why I prefer the horizontal, low profile engines and I use a 12v winch to run them on ramps into/out of the back of my one tonner.

All

I'd love to have an open crank too, justifying the extra $$ is just a bit of an issue.

I'll have to get my stepfather and brother in law on here too, combined they've got around 300 engines.

Numbers don't mean much to me Greg. The pleasure of getting a seized engine out of a "lay down yard", stripping it down and restoring it is what I thrive on. I send them on their way when I get them running and go look for more. That's why none of the ones I'm restoring ATM look pretty, besides I like them in their "working clothes".

The reason I prefer open crank horizontals is that there is much more going on that is visible. Not just two flywheels spinning.

All

I agree whole heartedly. Open cranks are so much more appealing, hence the extra $$. If I could, I'd have one myself.

I'm a member of the Wedderburn Historic Engine and Machinery society, (WHEMS), here in Victoria. I put up a thread about a rally in Warracknabeal, Victoria, over the Easter weekend. It's usually a pretty good turnout, been there the last 4 years.

I belong to the NQMP club in North Queensland. I'll be going to Biloela later this year and hopefully to the National next year in Mudgee. See ya there.

All

Hi to All, as this thread is complete and over 3 months old, I will now close it...If any member has anything to add, please PM a moderator.