International Harvester Farmall surprise

[Lane Ranger 10,968]

This is a surprise to me and maybe you too!  In the old days of farming a flat or low tire could be a problem.   This was before air compressors were widely available.  
 

International Harvester had a special attachment that hooked up to a spark plug port .  It was a hose with gauge that was used to pump up the tire with air compressed by motor turning over. 
 

How’s that for ingenuity! 

[ranger 1,750]

I had one in the early 1970s, as you say, it replaced a spark plug and used the “Pulse” from that cylinder to operate a diaphragm to pump clean air from outside of the engine. Same principle as some fuel pumps. Never did work very well.

 

Doug.

Edited April 24, 2021 by ranger

[squonk 41,104]

I think JC Whitney sold them. Not unusual at all. A lot of the old time air compressors for road construction work that were powered by flatheads had 2 cylinders burning gas and 2 just pumping air. An old timer up the road from me has one he sandblasts with. 

[bds1984 1,429]

Many Ford Model A engines were set-up for air compressor use.  Cylinders 2 & 3 were the compressors that were powered by 1 & 4.  VW Beetle engines have also been set up like this, too.  

[JoeM 7,874]

So if you took an old K301 (29 cubic inch)  and hooked it up to the PTO on a 520 and ran it at 3600 how much CFM would it put out?

Figuring it would put out air on compression stroke and the ACR is disabled.

 

Would a good number be 30 CFM? at 90 psi

Edited April 25, 2021 by JoeM

[T-Mo-(Moderator) 4,496]

As mentioned above, Ford had them also.  See page 9 of the attached brochure.  Also take note of the tractor jack that used the tractor's 3 point lift to jack the tractor up.  The jack also included an attachment to lift the front of the tractor at the same time.

Dearborn Attachments - Accessories and Special Items Catalog - 1953.pdf

[JoeM 7,874]

1 hour ago, T-Mo said:

attached brochure

Just the beginning of the less is more movement! 

I like the one picture of the guy changing the spark plugs.....hook m up to laptop now before fix'n begins.

[edgro 677]

I remember look under the hood of one of those construction crew compressors, and it was a ford v8, 4 cylinders pumping air, 4 burning fuel. Seems like pretty creative engineering

[Jeff-C175 7,202]

10 hours ago, bds1984 said:

Beetle engines have also been set up like this

 

That was actually my first air compressor!  I don't recall the details of how we did it (50 years ago!) but it was pretty easy and worked quite well.  We used an old well tank for storage and were able to easily get 60 PSIG.  Used only for filling tires.

 

I just googled and found kits available to do this that include a special camshaft but I do remember that we did not go that far.  Near as I can recall we modded the intake manifold and used check valves in the spark plug holes.  The kit they now sell seems to pump air on both compression and exhaust.  We wasted the exhaust stroke as I remember.

Edited April 25, 2021 by Jeff-C175