Arthur Eldredge

No, it is not me who has a screw loose, although some people might think I do when they see me driving my 1901 Lane. Rather it is the Lane that has had a history of unscrewing things since it was restored.

The first time something unscrewed was in 1975 on its maiden steam car meet. My father and I were attending the Cape Cod Caper steam car tour hosted the late Stanley Ellis and John West. We decided to attempt the first day tour, a distance of 80 miles. It was on the return leg of the tour when the first unscrewing occurred. Dad and I both heard a clink from the side of the car so we immediately stopped. We discovered that the bypass valve stem had completely unscrewed and blown out of the valve body. Where was it?

We could see squirt marks on the pavement from each stroke of the pump. We followed the squirt marks back to where they started and found the valve stem in the grass alongside the road. We screwed it back in and noted that the gland needed to be tightened. It blew out once more before we arrived back at the motel where we were staying.

The next unscrewing happened to both my father and later, to me after I acquired the car.

This time the differential was trying to shed the screws, which secured the chain sprocket to it. When it happened to my father, he used loctite on the screws. Apparently that wasn't sufficient as the same thing happened to me at the Mt. Washington Centennial in 1999. I decided to make a fix that would definitely keep the screws in place. The screws are fillister head screws so it was easy to drill them for safety wire. One or two screws had fallen out and were lost so I had to make replacements. This was a simple lathe job and once all the screws were back where they belonged I installed the safety wire, which has done the job well.

This summer the Lane engine developed a serious knock. I immediately assumed it had suffered a wrist pin bushing failure as this had happened before. After the meet at New London I only ran the car once, and very briefly at that as it was knocking so badly. In October I pulled the engine and have dissected it to see what was causing the knock. What I surprise I got! The wrist pins were essentially good, however, the eight screws securing both main bearing caps had backed out close to one quarter of an inch. This engine has plain main bearings (inserts similar to modern car). Upon examining things, I found that there was no damage to the crankshaft or the bearings. It was a good thing that I stopped running the car when I did! I will make very sure that those screws don't loosen again. One other thing in the engine had loosened as well. The check nut on the left side piston rod had backed off allowing the piston rod to unscrew some from the crosshead. Had that completely unscrewed I would have found myself minus one cylinder head! Once all these things are screwed backed together properly, the car should be in good running order once again and ready for touring.

I wonder what will unscrew next. Admittedly there are not many things left on the car that could unscrew as long as I keep up with the maintenance. We will just have to wait and see.

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