Monday, April 15, 2013

Shhh... Don't tell Lynn...

The other day, Bitmonkey posted a picture of a 1938 Briggs and Stratton WMI 1/2 hp engine that followed me home from the Twinline motorcycle swap meet.  These were used on washing machines and mowers.  Don't ask me why, I am a sucker for a project, and it's so cute and needed a home and we all know '38 was a good year for flathead engines...

Since then I have been watching eBay and Seattle CL for some missing parts, namely the sheet metal shrouds that cover the flywheel and cylinder.  I happened to stumble across a CL listing for this 1948 Briggs WI 1/2 hp engine (another good year for flatheads):

 So I am thinking, hmmm, it's got the sheet metal that would fit the '38 WMI, along with other parts, and it's local, so no shipping...  and Lynn is at Mom's weekend in Pullman...

Those of you that share my affliction will see where this is going...  It's mine now.  It also runs, although it's missing the gas tank.  How could I tear this one apart when it has survived this long and it ran so pretty for me?  So I found tins on eBay for the '38 after all...



Y'know, I'll bet with a little tuning, and some proprietary hop-up tricks, I could probably coax another 1/8 hp out of this thing...


Posted by at 12:05 AM

3 comments:

  1. BitMonkeyApril 15, 2013 at 9:02 AM

    You might be thinking a little too small. Find a vintage McCulloch or S&S supercharger and run it on alcohol and I'm thinking we could get 7/8 BHP for a run or two...

    ReplyDelete
  2. english stephenApril 26, 2013 at 9:22 PM

    So do you plan on driving anything with this little baby?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Flathead45April 30, 2013 at 6:09 PM

    Not sure yet. We might be converting a half-built pedal car that Vaughn adopted into a 1/2 hp go-cart. It will depend on how quiet we can get the engines when properly muffled.

    Mostly I'm just a sucker for something old and cool.

    ReplyDelete

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