Still Life with Rusty Timing Chain

While I prefer to display gorgeous vintage engines with polished aluminum or turned finishes, occasionally I show the other end of the continuum. Oxidation is the eventual fate of all of man’s automotive engineering efforts as rust indeed never sleeps, while man too often does.

I found this tired old engine in a field off Burn Road here in Arlington. A man there has accumulated a cache of two makes, one European, and one domestic, and a buddy of mine was picking over them for parts. I tagged along to get some photos and knowing that my Jaguar shares an air filter with one model of one of the makes thought I might just fine a canister for it if I was lucky. I wasn’t, but I did see a lot of rust.

Can you name the make and model of this vehicle based on the photo?

Since we’ve seen nary a guess, here’s a hint:

Car Photo of the Day: Still Life with Exhaust Manifold and Polished Head.

Speaking of the ABFM at Van Duesen Gardens in BC and looking at engines… This one, an AC Ace, was one of the best seen that day. (No guessing games today as the placard identifies the car!) Gorgeous.

Perhaps the car spotters here can get some exercise naming the car in the background.

Car Photo of the Day: Back to basics.

Austin Seven.

This old Austin Seven was seen at the All British Field Meet in Vancouver BC several years back. Nick & I went up for the day in the 65E, toweled off the car, and pretty much abandoned it as we wandered all over the grounds of Van Duesen gardens admiring the cars. I love to look at pre-war cars, and someday would love to be the caretaker of one. These little Austins are not really my style but this car came with a bonus, which you can see behind it…

Cutaway drivetrain display.

Near the little Seven was shown this cutaway… I love looking at engines. What gearhead doesn’t?

Nick relished this display for the cogent illustration of the basic functions of the drivetrain components of a car. Cutaway engines are fairly common but this one also included the clutch and gearbox so it really does a far better job of showing the process. Nicholas learned about timing, fuel-air mixture, bore & stroke, lubrication, intake and exhaust cycles, the transformation of reciprocal into rotational motion, the purpose of the flywheel and clutch, and how gearing works. Seeing this in the flesh, and turning the engine by hand does so much more for illustrating the process than my standard “go to” Animated Engines. This old side-valve engine of course is primitive, but the concepts remain the same to this day. From this basis I was able to show Nick the engines in other cars on the field and explain the subtle differences, such as overhead valves, various cam-driving solutions, and of course cylinder configurations.

What a neat thing to bring along to a show.

Car Photo of the Day: Outstanding in its field.

This car looks so sad… shivering out in the (admittedly sparse) weeds. I almost tagged this under the “Still life with…” category, but that would be mean. The car is quite rare, and I can honestly say it is the only one I’ve ever seen.

I shot the photo many years back, and I know at least one commentator here knows exactly what it is, so he’s ineligible for guessing, though he can referee for those that do guess, as he knows more about this type of car than I do. Do you know what it is? Take a guess in the comments.

(Note, as I’m behind of CPotD posts, there may be more than one today, stay tuned)