I just wrote a bit in another "thread" about a Model T engine that I found, bought, and re-sold many years ago in Montana. The engine had been used many years prior to power some sort of home-made machine to cut blocks of ice out of frozen ponds/lakes during the cold Montana winters.

Anybody else know of other uses that people found for Model T engines?

I also remember, as a kid (at least sixty-some years ago) that had been used to power some gin-pole arrangement for handling logs at a sawmill. Actually, this was a complete Model T chassis that was securely bolted to a very heavy concrete base, and the main cable for the gin-pole rig was wound around a large pulley that replaced one of the rear brake drums, and the action of that pulley was controlled by using the brake mechanism of the opposite brake drum as some sort of clutch. I was only a kid at the time, but I remember how fascinating it was to watch how the operator could handle those huge logs, just by alternately applying & releasing the stock Model T brake mechanism on one side of the Model T differential, to control the pulley action on the opposite side of the differential! Even as a little kid, I remember thinking that it was really neat, how much work the guy was getting out of that little Model T engine! I wish I could remember if there was some sort of gear reduction besides the original Model T planetary transmission, but I really don't think so. I remember that I did immediately recognize that whole chassis as a Model T Ford.

And then of course, there was the Pietenpol (sp?) airplane, right? Anybody else know of other "re-purposing of Model T power?

Sixty plus years ago the local welder had a water well drilling rig with a T engine.Back then many people had doodle bugs but i never saw one made from a T.Bud.

There’s supposed to be a T engine near me tucked away in somebody’s junk that’s been converted to a welder. I also know there was a period conversion to turn a Model A engine into a compressor, I wonder if the same was available for a T?

Then there’s Bombardier’s first snowmobile:

There were commercial units sold to convert model T engines into air compressors. Sorry I don't have any links available to information about them.
Years ago, I had a model T engine block that had been converted to an air compressor, however it had a little more to its history than that. It was a late 1927 post-production replacement engine that had originally been highly modified into a flathead racing engine. The modifications were a bit too extreme, resulting in a potentially serious failure in the valve ports. So, someone decided since they had spent too much for their racing engine to just junk it, they salvaged some of their loss by filling the damaged valve port with lead and using the other port with very light springs as atmospheric valves for an air compressor. They did this on cylinders one and four, leaving two and three to run as a two cylinder engine to power the compressor cylinders.
By the time it came to me, it had been mostly disassembled, leaving just enough to figure out what it had been through. I was so impressed by the work on that block that I wanted to hear it run. So I returned the block to its previous state as a racing engine. Removed all the lead fillings, a simple patch on the damaged port, and used in in a racing car I had for restoration at that time. A flathead, with a stock model T head, developed enough power to pass speedsters with Rajo or Fronty heads going uphill in mountainous roads on the Endurance Runs! It is also the car that I just once, to see if it could do it, "spun a donut on dry pavement. I told you it was "highly modified", and it was original from the days. Wish I still had that car.

Our local picture theatre had a T powered stand by generator under the stage.

I have 2 in the shed that are stationary engines but I don't know what they had been powering.

The Collyer Brothers used a Model T in the basement to power their apartment when the city of NY turned off their power.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2217953/Homer-Langley-Collyer-Hoarder-b rothers-killed-clutter-New-York-mansion.html

I have a Roberts converted T marine engine
Also a conversion used for a piece of farm machinery (probably a combine or similar). It has a clutch arrangement and used a BIG radiator.
Lots of interesting stuff done with the T engine

Many years ago when I was in High School (1956) My best friend Mike who was into old cars big time was going up to Mojave, California with a HCCA big buck friend to look at a Knox that had been used as a tractor.
It seems that this gentleman had driven up from Los Angeles in his curved dash Oldsmobile, which was still there on the 160 acre homestead, and proceeded to convert all of the following cars that he owned into tractors. The Olds, and all of the other tractors, was still there missing the radiator.
what I thought was interesting was that the homesteader had electrified his farm using a early Dodge four cylinder engine with a dc generator and batteries. Common place now but leading edge then.
He also had a room set up for grinding his own glass lenses for his spectacles.
Mike and I dug around in the trash heap and found what mike said were model t Rods. Couldn't prove it by me but a few months later I almost bought a 25 runabout. It would of been mine but for the lack of the $300 dollar price.

Let’s not forget the many boats and several airplanes that were T powered.
Also ski lifts.

The John Deere No. 10 One Man Power Driven Corn Picker was driven by a Model T engine in 1922.

The vin. no. on this picker that I have a picture of is 6,541,XXX

In the '50's and '60's we had a small local sawmill powered by a T engine near our small town owned by a pair of brothers. My buddy got it in the early '60's after they shut the mill down. Dave

On the next farm the farmer/blacksmith/sawmill owner,and weld anything.said a supped up farmal M would saw but to do a good job a 100 h.p. tractor was much better?? Bud in Wheeler,Mi.

All interesting, Wayne, can you go into more detail to the modifications that made the engine so powerful. I have a Model A engine in my TA race car that sounds similar in capabilities. But again a Model A. thanks

This one has had the water jacket opened up to make it lighter and judging by the remains of the prop attached to it, I assume it was used as an aircraft engine.

What do you think the metal on the sides is about? At least it is all safety wired

There’s been a thread or two about that aero engine around here before. IIRC that strip along the valve springs was for a valve position-triggered ignition.

John has a T engine that was modified for aircraft use.

This is a T chassis converted to a yard tractor. This was done by a local company Tupper and Steel of Vancouver

All the cars were right hand drive here until 1923

There was an outfit in Bellingham, sold a fleet of Model T Shop or yard tractors at auction, probably in the 80's, think it was Pacific American Fisheries. Frank Henkin of Bellingham ended up with one. Haven't seen one since. Dave in Bellingham,WA

As a kid my family had a summer home on Lake Goodwin near Marysville Wa. The neighbors had a float we would swim over to, and it was anchored to the bottom with a model t block.


Another neighbor had a model t buzz saw with a huge open unguarded saw blade. He sold firewood to the folks in the area. I can still remember the singing of the saw blade as it cut thru the wood.


just sayin'


brasscarguy

Ron Patterson,

That aircraft engine is pretty cool, Where is the exhaust manifold?