Dad'sMONSTER flathead V8 powered welder

[Mikeymetal]

Here's some pics of my dads huge welder. I have never seen it run but my older brother hooda (a member here) has. he claimes that it was a site to behold and LOUD!!. I just remember it sitting in the corner of my dad's old shop and gramps puttering around with it from time to time and mumbling something about the govrenor being bad. Anybody ever seen one of these?

[Tritium]

That piece of history needs to be made new so it can shine again. What a monster. I lost most of my grandads stuff when his shop burned to the ground 10 years ago. Too bad because I had all the tools and parts to rebuild those flathead fords.

Thurmond

[Mikeymetal]

I hear ya. The most unfortunate thing about it is that it was stored INDOORS in a climate controlled enviroment til about 2 years ago. My dad leased the building out and in spite of me and my brothers lobbying to put it in the other building, out she went. I put pop cans on the exaust pipes but i think a little bit of tain may have gotten to it. I'll be seeing about that if winter EVER ends here in minnesota. The goal is for us to get her fired up and post some videos of it in action.

[Tritium]

Just pop out the spark plugs and squirt a little motor oil in each cylinder and turn it over by hand a few times. I have done that before firing one up that sat for nearly 20 years in a similar condition. Those engines were pretty bulletproof.

Thurmond

[Ram48]

There are a few guys that have or make parts for old flat head fords it seems they still have a following in the hot rod scene.
try a small amount of Marvel mystery oil down the plug holes. Man you have got to get that old girl restored to her former glory It is awesome.

[Mikeymetal]

That's what I'm hoping will work. The biggest concern that I have is how to get the enourmos generator producing electric again. From what little research we have done (my bro is more book inclined than me) if a generator sits for too long a period it loses its polarity or something like that. I guess that was a common problem with the 6 and 12 volt generators that cars used to have back before tha start of using alternators. From what I hear you had to give the generator a little jolt at 12 volts to remind it what it was spossed to do. But where the heck does a guy go to find out how much of a jolt it would take to do this on something this size? Right now the argument between us is that I say it will take a major jolt, Hooda say that it will only take a little bump from a car battery with jumper cables. What say you?

[Tritium]

Hooda is correct but it needs to be the rotor windings not the stator windings. It is called flashing. All you are doing is establishing a weak magnetic field in the iron of the rotor (field windings). Try it first you may not have to flash it at all.

Hey just noticed this is post 61 I am good to go for the contest!

Thurmond

[geezer]

Definatley a biggy, seen a few powered by the old dodge flat head six, never saw one that big 500A, Gramps problem with the govenor could have been due to the push rod that works the fuel pump on the oldflat head, the cam lobe that works the rod up and down wears out and won't give a full stroke, had that problem when I was running flatheads, even a new pump won't fix the problem, need to go to an electric or replace the cam.

[ScratchStart]

I have seen a couple guys "flash" those old generators, both used a welder to get enough juice, the biggest problem I can see is if it matters wich way you run the juice through the winding... strait or reverse... I'd love to see the vids of the thing running, and NOTHING sounds like a flathead 8

[wruehl]

WOW! What an awesome beast! I'd love to see a video of that thing running again! Hell, I'll throw the camera in the bike, ride up and shoot the video for you.

[Mikeymetal]

Well wreuhl, this will be happening before the end of summer. If I'm able to, I'd be happy to have you here, camera in hand! I gave my brother the heads up to go ahead and chime in ANY time as far as the history of this beast goes. He has actually seen it in operation. But that was before I was even born! Here's a couple more closeups of the generator, just to give a perspective of how huge the thing is.

[DVA]

That is awesom. I will half to share this with my old manager, he has a 34 Ford with a flat head engine. I wonder if Jay Leno has one of thoes?

[67cudafb]

Wow thats something I would like to hear that at full song would wake the dead.

[jerky]

id like to run a bead with it

[ogorir]

back to post count upping...

[redbeard]

back to post count upping...

Sure why not, maybe the OP is subscribed to the thread and all the content rich replies will get him back here again to give us an update.

[performance]

Ogorir is right on this one. We asked for people participating in the contest not to do this...which seems to be what this was here. This is an old post.

[SeanMurphy265]

All I have to say is those old machines are great examples of craftsmanship. Why do these old machines not produce the power to run tools like the newer machines? Where these strictly for welding only?

[ogorir]

that probably depends on the specific 'old machine.' most welding machines have DC generators, and I think miller has used a 6-pole design for a while (equivalent to 6-phase electricity, but gets converted to DC in the generator). to add the 'generator' function, there needs to be a separate generator section or an inverter, driving up cost and complexity.

[hooda]

To give you an update, I'm at serious odds with my Dad. He has started moving out of his old shop, where I was working on it, and had planed on resurrecting this thing back to it's old glory. It was the first thing that he moved to his new place, even though it has done nothing but sit for over 30 years, I feel he took it out of spite. Cryin shame. He has made it clear that even though he has 15,000 square feet of shop space at the new place, not so much as a paper clip of mine will be allowed on the new property. To top it all off, there was 100+ feet of welding cables sitting on the back of the machine, which I took the time to move indoors. Some (*$$$* actually stole the cables out of the shop during the move. Hopefully he'll see the err of his ways, and let me have the machine. We'll see