YEARS OF GEARS ENTHUSIASTS KEEP MOTORS RUNNING.Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer LANCASTER - A love of old machinery, a nostalgia for equipment from boyhood or an appreciation for century-old technology that boasts ideas still regarded as innovative motivates the members of Rusty Relics. Filling a grassy Antelope Valley This article is about the Los Angeles County region. For the census-designated place in Wyoming, see Antelope Valley-Crestview, Wyoming. The Antelope Valley Fairgrounds n. pl. 1. same as fairground. lawn are chugging one- cylinder engines, farm pumps and contraptions rescued from decades of disuse dis·use n. The state of not being used or of being no longer in use. disuse Noun the state of being neglected or no longer used; neglect Noun 1. and more than a dozen 50-year-old tractors looking like they just rolled off the factory floor. ``It's all been done before but nobody recognizes that,'' Rusty Relics President Jerry Burak said of the appeal of restoring old technology. Burak, a Chatsworth resident who has done technical development work on motorcycle racing motorcycle racing Sport of running motorcycles on tracks, closed circuits, or natural terrain. The main types are (1) road racing, conducted on a course made up wholly or partly of public roads; (2) trials, conducted both on and off the highway; (3) speedway racing, engines, says an 1896 gasoline engine gasoline engine: see internal-combustion engine. gasoline engine Most widely used form of internal-combustion engine, found in most automobiles and many other vehicles. had injection, overhead cams and two intake valves per cylinder - just like the latest automobile engines. From 30 years of storage in Nevada, Burak rescued a three-cylinder, 594- cubic-inch engine that once powered a 44-foot fishing boat. The engine - which in the number of cubic inches is about twice the size of a modern American V-8 - now powers a 1915 firetruck chassis. Many of the restored tractors are objects remembered from boyhood. Arthur Thomas Arthur Thomas:
``That's what I learned to drive on, a tractor like this,'' Thomas said from the bucket seat of the tractor, painted John Deere's trademark gleaming green and yellow. The tractor now stays in the garage at Thomas' Palmdale tract home. Rusty Relics, a chapter of the Early Days Gas Engine and Tractor Association, gets about two-thirds of its members from the Antelope Valley, the rest from the Santa Clarita or San Fernando valleys or elsewhere. Some of its relics have a local history. A 1934 Ford flatbed truck once belonged to a California City man. His family donated the truck to the club after his death. The fair exhibit's centerpiece is a 12-ton diesel engine that in the 1930s and 1940s pumped irrigation irrigation, in agriculture, artificial watering of the land. Although used chiefly in regions with annual rainfall of less than 20 in. (51 cm), it is also used in wetter areas to grow certain crops, e.g., rice. water at Lancaster farmer Antonio Piani's ranch. Started by a hand crank that compressed air compressed air, air whose volume has been decreased by the application of pressure. Air is compressed by various devices, including the simple hand pump and the reciprocating, rotary, centrifugal, and axial-flow compressors. into a tank, which was emptied out to move the engine's single massive cylinder, the Fairbanks-Morris engine pumped 900 gallons of water a minute. ``They started it up in April, and they shut it off in October - that's the story,'' said club member Craig Mathews of Northridge. Charles F. Bostwick, (661) 267-5742 chuck.bostwick(at)dailynews.com CAPTION(S): 4 photos, box Photo: (1 -- color in AV edition only) Ron Hanson adjusts the four-cylinder engine of a 1924 Ford Model T on display at the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds. (2 -- color in AV edition only) All manner of antique engines are on display at an exhibit by the enthusiast group the Rusty Relics at the Antelope Valley Fair. (3 -- ran in AV edition only) Older model motors - from Ford tractors and a Model T to a stationary diesel engine - are part of the Rusty Relics display. (4 -- ran in AV edition only) This gleaming line of vintage John Deere tractors Deere & Company began the company's expansion into the tractor business in 1912. Deere Company briefly experimented with its own tractor models, the most successful of which was the Dain All-Wheel-Drive. , part of the Rusty Relics display, is owned by Lancaster farmer Ray McCormick. Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer Box: (ran in AV edition only) ANTELOPE VALLEY FAIR SCHEDULE |
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