EXA Friend Engine
Michael Guy was searching for parts to restore his Friend Engine and
came across the article Dave Dickinson contributed to this site. On
following up and trying to contact Dave, Michael found that he had
passed on. This is very sad news as David had gathered a tremendous
amount of knowledge on the Friend engines and will be missed by many.
Through Dave's wife Beth, Michael was able to obtain some parts to get
his unit running and a complete EXA Simplex Motor Pump.
Michael (on the left) attempting to get the EXA running at the Uxbridge
Ontario Steam Show. This EXA has has Wico
ignition and is a single cylinder unit which in its past life would
have powered a pumping unit as part of a friend sprayer. These engines
are quite unusual in their design appearance and stand out amongst the
many at shows. In the photo, the EXA is belted up to a slow running
Farmall tractor which is turning it over while adjustments are made.
In this photo, the Exa is powering along on its own seeming to be
running quite nicely. Uxbridge looks like a nice place for a show - the
view of into the background of the nearby hills, nice green grounds.
When Michael visited Beth Dickinson, he took some photos of Dave's EXA
show engine. Beth appears in some of the photos.
This photo of Dave's engine clearly shows the twin piston pump used to
drive the sprayer. The pump unit is not directly coupled, but more on
that later...
This is the head end of Dave's engine, showing the (probably) 3/4" Schebler
mixer and Wico trip magneto. One of the unusual design features of the
friend is that it does not use push rods to activate the valves, the
motion is carried to the head end via gears and the valves are operated
from a cam on a gear driven shaft. You might even go as far as saying
this was one of the first overhead valve engines with gear driven
timing (Japanese car makers eat your heart out :).
This is the tail end of the EXA showing the gear drive behind the
flywheel - the bull gear on the left drives a shaft which passes under
the cylinder to the pump unit on the other side of the engine.
This is the flywheel side of the EXA, showing the bull gear, spur gear
driving the valve cam shaft and the governor also driven from the bull
gear.
This is the twin piston pump mounted to the engine. The drive is not
direct coupled. There is an eccentric shaft mounted on the main drive
shaft. The eccentric is the driver for the pump. As it turns in its
wide arc, it forces the piston pump back and forth. This motion is
fairly slow and is clearly visible when the engine is running making
for some interesting monkey motion for people watching the engine.
These pumps are one of the reasons people are attracted to the EXA.
The photographs in this picture are © Copyright 2004 Michael Guy
All Rights Reserved with the exception of the first one which is ©
Copyright 2004 David Ross All Rights Reserved. These photographs were
submitted by Michael Guy and are used with his permission. Thanks for
submitted the photos and your accompanying information and passing on
the sad news about Dave.
Michael has his own pages on steam locomotives at Michael's Locomotive Pages |
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