Wisconsin Engine Plate

[trusty220]

This Spring I was rebuilding the Wisconsin AEH engine ready for appearing in it’s telly debut. It was an earlier restoration and I had worked out a division of labour between my dad and myself- he’d do the engine whilst I did the rest of the tractor. Unfortunately he’d got the ignition timing slightly out due to a previous owner replacing the original American magneto with a British Wico A; the timing marks all lined up but the points sprang open at the wrong part of the piston travel. At the time it was OK to use for show purposes but we felt that the ignition timing was too retarded, a fact confirmed when we tried to plough with it and it just flatly refused to pull the plough through the ground.

I stripped it down completely this Spring in readiness for ploughing and found the offending gear driving the magneto was one tooth out, so it was all re-assembled and painted up ready. One thing I couldn’t correct at the time was the engine plate which had rusted really badly.

The engine is an American one which was supplied to Britain under the lend/lease agreement in the early war years. I couldn’t find a good enough original plate over here to have a replica made and so the Trusty appeared on the telly with the old, rusty plate attached. Shortly afterwards I contacted one of our members in the East Midlands who had located someone in California that sold reproduction plates for them, so after a few false starts I managed to find him, he managed to find them under the dust in the corner of his office and he sent me one over. It’s very slightly different, but close enough to make no odds so here is the picture.

If anyone else wants one please drop me a line and I’ll gladly pass on the chap’s details.

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