All-Wood Gas Engine Really Runs

All-Wood Gas Engine Really Runs ENERGY Wood Burners 65 You ve never seen anything like this all-wood 1-cyl gas engine built by Paul Gorrell Burlington Iowa     There s no metal at all in it - no screws nuts nails or anything else It s held together with wood pegs and even has a wood gas tank fuel line and mixer all of which are coated with gas tank sealer All the moving parts were penetrated with Minwax wood hardener and sprayed with coats of Teflon Dry Lube high performance formula They re also lubricated with extra virgin olive oil The engine even has a striking flint stone ignition     Eight different kinds of wood were used to build it The oak pins that hold the engine together can be driven out to take the engine apart for repairs      I ve been showing equipment at engine shows for 40 years and this is the best ædraw I ve ever had People are fascinated by it says Gorrell     The engine measures 4 ft long 3ft high and 2 ft wide and rides on a 4-wheeled cart equipped with a tongue made from a Louisville Slugger bat Pecan was used for the flywheels gears push rod and rocker arms; oak for the frame wheels axles and bolsters; hickory for the inner frames cylinder rod and tongue; honey locust for rails; walnut for the platform nuts and other miscellaneous parts; cedar for the hopper; mahogany for the pulley; and ebony for the piston and cylinder     Wood doesn t transfer heat so Gorrell designed the engine to cool internally The 3 3/4-in bore piston has a 7-in stroke The engine cools itself by drawing air in and out of the exhaust port three times between firings There are three in-and-out strokes between firings which is what cools the cylinder walls says Gorrell Halfway down the intake stroke becomes a power stroke so I m getting two cycles out of one stroke which accounts for the odd one I eliminated the compression stroke to get rid of heat      When I fired my all-wood engine up the first time I wondered if it would just burn up but it really sounds like other old antique gas engines It usually starts easy with a slow quarter turn pull on the flywheel I enjoy seeing peoples faces when they hear the engine come to life The only problem I had was with two burned valves I knocked the pins out that hold the engine together fixed the valves and put everything back in place     To make the cart s tongue he drilled a hole through the end of the bat and put a wood pin through it that extends into the front axle so that he can use a Louisville Slugger baseball bat to pull and steer the cart     Before building the engine Gorrell even ran each board through a metal detector to make sure there weren t any screws in it I found three pieces that I couldn t see on the outside he notes     Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Paul Gorrell 11306 Mill Dam Road Burlington Iowa 52601 ph 319 753-1837

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