Tuesday Torque: A Forty Year Project

Through the magic of the Internet we can try to go back and revisit our memories.  I spotted a flywheel through a hole in the side of a shed when I was going up Buck's branch forty years ago, and then went there after work to check it out.  The 9 HP Sears and a bur mill were in the shed, which had been recently damaged by a back hoe.  The gas line markers in this photo were behind the shed, and the engine ran on gas supplied by that gas line.  Both the engine shed and the miller's home are long gone.  (Google Earth image)

The man who lived here was the son of the miller, and he was glad to see a collector get his artifacts so there would be hope for them.  We moved to Illinois a couple years later and brought the engine and mill with us.  Gary Bahre took the engine under his wing a couple years ago and has made it look factory-new.  The new underslung cart with the Case threshing machine wheels really makes it a beautiful showpiece.  Gary has just finished installing the original ignitor with a Webster magneto that he rehabbed so the Sears looks like it did when it left the Evansville factory in 1920.