A Round-A-Bout Way to Acquire An Engine (Morris not Ford)

Posts that have nothing to do with the Model T. You can post here or OT posts will be moved here.
Forum rules
If you need help logging in, or have question about how something works, use the Support forum located here Support Forum
Complete set of Forum Rules Forum Rules
User avatar

Topic author
A Whiteman
Posts: 992
Joined: Sun Jan 06, 2019 3:36 pm
First Name: Adrian
Last Name: Whiteman
* REQUIRED* Type and Year of Model Ts owned: 1926 TT, 1924 Colonial Roadster, 1924 'Bullnose' Morris, 1925 'Bullnose' Morris, 1936 JD AR
Location: South Island, New Zealand

A Round-A-Bout Way to Acquire An Engine (Morris not Ford)

Post by A Whiteman » Wed May 11, 2022 6:59 am

Adrian Whiteman, New Zealand, May 2022 - A little story for something different :-)

Feel dizzy on a Round-a-bout?

Winter. That time again. The cars to be put into storage and time to look around for other things to occupy the free hours.

Well, those ‘other things’ usually seem to come through rather round-a-bout ways, and this one is no exception.

O’Kain’s Bay is a very scenic location in the Bank’s Peninsular on the South Island of New Zealand. It was originally a logging port for ‘Totara’ (or ‘black pine’) a very durable and sought after native timber. Once the trees had been cut down the sawyers settled down to become farmers, at one point setting up their own cheese factory, which made sense as the location is remote and making cheese was probably the best product that kept long enough to be sold.

A tsunami in South America dumped a load of silt in the river mouth in the late 1800s, so that ruined the landing, which was up the river, and made shipping of products a lot harder, leading to the setting up of a short horse drawn railway to move timber down to the coast from the mill. This was rather short lived as the timber ran out not too long afterwards.

The saw milling and then the farming has been in the hands of the Thacker family for around 4 or 5 generations now. With so much family history, machinery, artefacts and items being accumulated over the years one of the family members decided to gather it together and preserve it in old farm sheds, and then later in the old cheese factory, opening to the public in 1977. That collection has grown and spread and run into several more sheds and even complete historic buildings (including a grandstand) that have been carted over miles of narrow winding and steep hills to get to the museum site. For many years any item of historic significance was gathered up and/or was brought and donated to the museum.
Time has passed by and the current custodian of the museum trust has decided it is time to rationalise and thin down items to focus on historical items specifically relating to Banks Peninsular and those of particular rarity (they hold the largest private collection of Maori artefacts in New Zealand).

As a result a number of items who’s history was unknown were authorised for disposal. Included among these was an (almost complete) Morris Marine Engine. Howard Pettogrew, a Vintage Car Club member and museum volunteer, could not bear to see it go to the junk yard and offered to advertise it in the New Zealand Vintage Car Club’s excellent magazine the “Beaded Wheels”.

Surprisingly, there was no interest (I initially didn’t see the advert either). However, Trevor Skilton did. Trevor has an interest in Morris Bullnose cars and keeps an informal register with details and pictures of all Morris cars he has tracked down in New Zealand. With the owner’s permission he keeps contact details as well. This document is shared among the owners periodically to help keep us in touch with the cars (and trucks) around the country and their status.

Having a Morris interest Trevor sought out Howard, but with no luck – at first at least. It seems the published contact details for Howard had a typo in them which probably explained why there was no interest in the engine…. Not to be deterred, Trevor dug a little deeper and applying his detective skills and a vast network of contacts he tracked Howard down and gathered details of the engine. Job done.

Well, he was still a little concerned about the fate of the engine, it seemed too good to be scrapped or lost in the weeds. That is where Trevor’s register came into play. Trevor scoured the pages and found myself as a Morris owner fairly (2 hour drive away) close to the museum. A phone call to me followed by an email with some details piqued my interest and he handed on Howard’s contacts. (Is this ‘round-a-bout’ enough so far :) ).

A call to Howard and a ‘donation’ to the museum was agreed upon in exchange for the engine. Howard has Commer Karrier trucks waiting restoration (he looks after antique printing machines including a couple of beautiful Linotypes in the Print Shop at the museum, so while he is quite occupied at the moment, the truck projects are 'still on the list’).

How would I lift it? “It’s OK” I replied, “I will bring some friends, Chris is a strong chap”. “Would that be Chris Dyer?” Howard asked (knowing I lived in Rangiora and so does Chris). It seems that Howard and Chris played badminton together several years ago. Another bit of the network.

The appointed day dawned fine and clear and off we went, winding up and down narrow roads on steep hillsides with magnificent views and perfect weather. As one of the crew tends to ‘get a bit queasy’ when he wasn’t driving, we dawdled along at a reduced speed in the winding bits which left even more time for the views and scenery. (Clearly a round-a-bout journey to get there as well!). I can certainly recommend this day trip outing when you are able to visit Christchurch, New Zealand again (hopefully the government will allow that soooonnnn…). In all the gawping at the views I didn’t stop to take a single picture, so I am sorry but I can’t grace the verbiage with one.

The rest of the day was a bit of an anti-climax really, after all the build-up we arrived, they lowered the engine on my trailer with an old front end loader equipped Fergie and we were on our way again. Actually we did have a couple of hours prowling around the museum. While most of it was locked up (closed with winter hours) the caretaker and Howard did allow us to poke in sheds and rummage the workshop for any other engine bits.

Some amazing stuff there, from water power turbines, boilers, railway remains, gigs, carts, ploughs, harness, stationary engines, Maori canoes, buildings, stuffed animals, clay pugger, and on it went. I even found an old Blackstone engine like my own great grandfather bought for his saw milling operations (you see my family had done much the same thing, started as loggers and sawyers, then switching to farming, only in our case it was in the North Island of New Zealand). I have the original manual for the Blackstone here in my desk draw.

The museum is definitely worth a visit on your next trip to New Zealand!

So, about the engine… dating from approx 1925 it is largely complete, but missing a few things – some of which I am not sure what they should be. In terms of automotive use perhaps the block, the dynastart and maybe the crankshaft are useful, however, I will be keeping all the bits together for the moment. Chris has started looking for a period boat hull to fit it into already!!! And we have a Model T transmission based marine gearbox to fit to the engine just sitting looking for a project. I agreed, and promised to start the project the day after his 1917 Cadillac is on the road (he started about 10yrs ago and has just reached the bare chassis stage at the moment ;-) ).
Trevor suspects the block (number 122024) may be a replacement out of a car. I don’t know anything about marine engines but when Chris finishes his Cadillac I guess I will have to learn ;-)

User avatar

Mark Gregush
Posts: 4957
Joined: Sat Jan 05, 2019 1:57 pm
First Name: Mark
Last Name: Gregush
* REQUIRED* Type and Year of Model Ts owned: 1925 cutdown PU, 1920 Dodge touring, 1948 F2 Ford flat head 6 pickup 3 speed
Location: Portland Or
MTFCA Number: 52564
Board Member Since: 1999

Re: A Round-A-Bout Way to Acquire An Engine (Morris not Ford)

Post by Mark Gregush » Fri May 13, 2022 3:24 pm

That was a good read! Thanks for the armchair trip.
I know the voices aren't real but damn they have some good ideas! :shock:

1925 Cut down pickup
1920 Dodge touring
1948 Ford F2 pickup

Post Reply Previous topicNext topic