Okay, squad. School circle.
By about 1949, the Rural Electrification Administration had wired up most of the farms in Calhoun County, so the prosperous Mrs. Kaddidlehopper of Rural Route 1 was able to replace her smelly, noisy, inconvenient gasoline powered washer with a plug-in model. That meant that she could, among other things, do laundry in the house, very handy in a Midwest winter.
Generally, the old gas Maytags went to People's Hardware, aka the junk yard where, as lads, we shopped.
The engines were cute, no other term for it. With a single cylinder, developing in the vicinity of one or two horsepower, and a horizontal shaft they demanded a second life in the transportation industry, and eight- and nine-year-old boys who went wow over newsreel clips of Mauri Rose and his Offenhausers were suckers for them. They pooled their dimes and quarters and negotiated with the junk man.
Now, ol' Elmer Maytag understood you could make a nifty 8 mph racer from his engine, but he probably didn't understand how poor kids could do it. To wit:
Assemble materials. -- engine; 2 x 12 plank about five feet long, (chassis); piece of pipe about 3 feet long, (clutch control); four wheels, preferably all the same size or nearly so; board (front axle ); steel rod (or water pipe) (rear axle) clothes line rope (steering device); flat belt (transmission); pulley for a rear wheel; wood apple box (seat); lard can full of nuts, bolts, washers.
The single great challenge was attaching the drive pulley to the rear axle, and sometimes the boys would seek the mature assistance of a high school kid who had passed shop.
Other than that, it was a piece of cake. Attach rear wheel assembly with U-bolts if you had them, fence staples if you didn't. Bolt engine to plank just slightly loose in the elongated holes so the whole thing could be moved back and forth a little to tighten or loosen the drive belt. This was the clutch mechanism. Lag screw the front wheels to the board and secure it to the plank with a centered and barely tight bolt. Drill two holes in the axle ends to hold the steering ropes (think horse reins). Nail the seat in place and paint your logo on it. ("Varoom!" was popular because you could vary the numbers of "o"s to achieve an aesthetic symmetry.)
You kicked the starter until the engine caught, ran around to the side and jumped on the seat. You grabbed the ropes, reached back to the clutch pipe and pulled it and the engine forward to tighten the belt. Then you were underway, terrorizing any stray dog, cat, or adult in the alley, trying to steer with two ropes in one hand, the other being occupied maintaining belt tension. Yeah, it was a design flaw.
Vibration was a problem, and the braking system primitive and very hard on the soles of your PF Flyers. We made a few improvements over the years until creatures in dresses started flouncing past the front gate, catching our eye and making us feel kind of squishy in the head. About then, for some reason which escapes me, we started losing interest in one-lungers.
I understand this sort of thing has been replaced by television, texting about Paris, and video games.
That is all. DisMISSED
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