6HP Seager Olds

On New Years Day, 2003, I was fortunate enough to add this 6HP Seager Olds to my collection. It was owned by Rex Messner who has an IMPRESSIVE collection of Olds engines including many large (15+HP) engines. It is pretty much in pieces except the crank and flywheels as Rex had started the restoration process several years ago. It is missing a couple of parts, one being the front water jacket cover, and the unique check ball for the fuel system. Fortunately Rex loaned me both a front cover and a non-functional check valve. I had two reproduction covers made of cast iron and a good friend and I hope made reproduction check valves, quite a number of which we have sold to others looking for check valves. This check valve is a very hard to find item as it is unique to Olds. As I am writing this it is Christmas 2004 and in the last month I have finally gotten around to seriously working on the engine (I did get the valve cages reworked last spring - see below). One of the main things holding me up, or, rather, something I couldn't figure out how to get around which kept dissuading me from starting, was that the crankshaft is bent on the ignition side of the engine between the main bearing and the flywheel. It was one of those things that I just didn't know how to tackle and I had to think on it a while. Well, I finally decided to take the bull by the horns and get going. Below is the restoration story, hopefully not too long and boring! More info with the following pictures.

As purchased In the front view of the engine you can see the open water jacket on the front of the cylinder casting. This is supposed to have a cast cover plate on it to seal the jacket. It actually acts as a freeze plug for the engine as it is much thinner than the rest of the engine casting. In the side view of the engine you can see the crank guard laying on the cart is not original to this engine. It was missing it when Rex purchased it and this guard was purchased seperately. Because the engine tag is on the crank guard I do not have the original serial number for the engine. Age is estimated at mid to late 1910's.

Click on each thumbnail for a larger picture - turn off your pop-up stopper, they will be in a second window!
	Just to give you a taste, this is a picture of one of Rex Messner's engines. Eventually mine will look like this!!
	Unloading the Olds from my wife's 1/2 ton Chevy. It made the truck squat for sure!
	Temporary resting place in the pole barn. To the left you can see the Olds pulley that I also bought for the engine.
FIRST WORK
Well, a year passed and the Olds still sat in the pole barn. Other projects came and went and the Olds still rested rather out of sight, out of mind. So, last winter after I got my shop insulated and finished off I decided that if I was going to work on it I should put it in the shop so I looked at it every day! In the spring I sorted through the parts and one of the obvious things that needed attention and was a small step toward restoration was the valve cages. Both of them had badly worn valve guides and the valve stems were badly worn and pitted as well. On the exhaust valve guide I decided to make a sleeve as the hole was so badly worn that it was not practical to make a new exhaust valve stem that large. The pictures below show the progress on the exhaust vave cage. Picture #1 shows the cage in the mill where I milled off the top then bored it to 1/2" diameter to accept the sleeve. Picture #2 shows the cage in the lathe where I refaced one of the two sealing surfaces where copper O-rings go. Picture #3 shows the cage ready to accept the sleeve and the sleeve. Picture #4 shows the completed cage with the new sleeve pressed in.
DISSASEMBLY
	The engine sat through the summer and fall as other warm weather projects took my time. Finally in December I got back to the engine and decided that the crank had to come out so I could get it straightened. That meant that the flywheels had to come off and I wasn't looking forward to that as they seemed to be very rusted on. (in fact I need to reface the flywheels as they are very very pitted). For about a week I soaked the flywheel hubs and the keys with PB Blaster to try to loosen things up. I then drilled and tapped the keys (which are tapered) and, using a slide hammer removed them without too much effort which really suprised me! To my amazement both of the flywheels came off the crank with only a small nudge! The insides of the hubs were oily which kept them free on the crank - thank goodness someone kept the bearings well oiled in its life! The picture shows the flywheels loose and ready to come off. I used the loader on my tractor to hold them up with a nylon lifting strap while I pulled them off the shaft.
The five pictures below are of the dissasembly of the rest of the engine. First the water hopper came off (it was loose when I got the engine and had two twisted off bolts that will have to be dealt with). Next came splitting the engine bed from the base which is also the gas tank. All four bolts which hold the two together twisted off and will need to be drilled out. The inside of the gas tank is shown in the next picture - terribly rust scaled but nothing rusted through. Following that are two pictures of taking the last parts apart - on this engine the whole cylinder assy. comes apart from the engine bed.
RESTORATION CONTINUES IN EARNEST!
The cylinder needed quite a bit of work on the mill. There were four twisted off bolts on the bottom side where the water jacket cleanout cover is and two on the top side where the water hopper attaches. Also, all gasket surfaces needed cleaning up as they were quite rusted. The water hopper surface was very badly pitted and after taking off 0.030" I decided to leave it there and just use permatex #2 when I assemble it. There were still quite a lot of pits particularly on one side but there was an area all the way around that cleaned up to make a good seal. I successfully milled and drilled out each twisted off bolt and re-tapped them. Interestingly, all the bolts on this engine are 1/2"-12, not 13 as is standard today, but 12 threads per inch. I needed a special tap to rethread the holes and found one at the local tool supply. I cannot as of this writing (1/05) find a 1/2"-12 die to clean up the bolts. One of the holes in the water jacket cleanout cover had been ruined somehow and was very oversize and rusted. I cleaned the hole out of all loose rust and filled it with JB Weld. After letting it harden for a day I drilled and tapped it, hopefully it will be adequate for the low torque required to hold the cover on. The pictures below are of the cylinder on the mill table after working on the top side where the water hopper goes. The right hand picture shows the water hopper surface, you can see the pits in it clearly. To the left is the intake valve cage surface which cleaned up really nicely. I used a fly cutter to do all the surfaces, you can see it chucked up in the mill.
More to follow!