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For some collecting and restoring is just a hobby, but for others it’s a lifestyle.

Resurrecting History – Restoring A 20HP Mogul Engine From A Wood Splitter – Part 1

About 8 years ago, a collector posted some photos on the Smokstak forum about an engine he found in the woods of Nova Scotia, Canada.

The engine is serial number 750 making it a 1915, only 488 were built from 1912 to 1918.

What interested us, was that it was a 20 HP Mogul Stationary Engine. First it was International and second, it was a hard to find Mogul Stationary Engine. 

The story was the engine was torn apart and turned into a wood splitter. They fixed a blade onto the flywheel and a rubber tire onto the pulley ring so it could be rolled over with a belt. The rest of the history is a bit of a mystery.

(above) The mogul engine as it sat in the woods when it was found in Nova Scotia.

The parts were spread out all through the woods, they found a piston here, a cylinder there, an oiler buried in the mud. In all the parts included; the engine crankcase with flywheels and crankshaft, the cylinder, the piston, the exhaust pot muffler, the exhaust manifold, and the carburetor. 

The engine cylinder and exhaust pot muffler.
The discarded hand wheel off the clutch, with a tree growing through it.
The engine carburetor.
The engine’s piston.
The engine’s mechanical lubricator.

In 2022, we acquired the engine from the collector in Nova Scotia and have steadily been restoring it. 

The engine crankcase after the bolt holes and studs had been cleaned, and added replacement bolts and nuts.

We were able to find some original parts including the governor and fuel pump/water pump with the bracket. New parts have been made including the top of the engine cover, the governor lid and the rear crankcase cover.

The above photos show machining the top of the crankcase cover.

The four photos below show the condition of the engine as of May 2024. The engine cover is machined and ready for install, the governor has been rebuilt with new cover made and machined, the back cover plate is machined and on, the mechanical lubricator is rebuilt, the fuel and water rebuilt and installed.

To Be Continued….

There was no cylinder head, so a pattern was 3-D printed using the original factory drawings, (provided by the Wisconsin Historical Society). I’ll share another post about the cylinder heads.

The cylinder still needs to be bored. We are making a new piston, using the old one as the pattern and core box.

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