Associated 2¼ HP Hired Hand

Specs are:
Associated Manufactures Company Hired Hand 2¼ HP @ 450 RPM air-cooled
Bore X Stroke = 4" X 5" serial # 150106 Built approx 1910 Flywheels are 18" in diameter.

This is the first picture we saw of the Hired Hand. 
George Best bought it for me at an auction, at that time we both were thinking it was a Chore Boy.
The engine has been in a fire and was stuck, the carburetor and rocker-arm were missing.

We were still pretty enthusiastic when we got it home in early May 2001. However it was pretty obvious that it was a real "project" engine!

Top view of the project

My dad made a home made press to get the piston out. He used an old liner that had a slightly bigger bore that the Associated, and attached to the lower end of the Assoc cylinder. The blue part on the picture is a pipe that just fits in the cylinder. This way we are sure that we put all pressure on the piston wall only. it took allot of pressure to get it out. Remember that it also had been soaking for 8 months!

In the mean time I made a mixer for it as well. I got some photo's from a friendly guy I met Online.
Here I've just drilled the valve needle and seat hole. It's very important to drill this in one setup to be sure everything is line up.

The end result 

Making a setup for pouring the main bearings. We always use stainless pipe or shaft as the babbit won't stick to it. It's very important to have the shaft at a 100% 90 degrees with the cylinder.

The setup from the top.

I sandblasted the crankshaft and found the serial number stamped in the end.
It's # 150106. I've heard that they started with # 150000 for the Hired Hand, would this mean it's the 106th Hired Hand made?

The crankshaft was pretty bad so we machined the main bearing. Since we had to pour new babbit bearings anyway this was no problem. The big-end bearing was in good condition.

The cylinder and piston were still in remarkable good condition.

Reassembling the engine again. May 2002

We had the engine running for the first time in May 2002.

Engine unrestored, but on an "original" cart. 

Question's or comments?     h.terpstra@wxs.nl