No. 385,087. Patented June 26, 1888.
FIGURE 9.--ILLUSTRATION FROM U.S. patent 385087, issued to Carl Benz,
showing the horizontal plane of the flywheel, a feature utilized by the
Duryeas in their machine.]
The first contemporary record of any work on vehicles is a bill, dated
January 21, 1892, for a drawing made by George W. Howard & Company. This
drawing was made in the fall of 1891 by Charles A. Bartlett, a member of
the Howard firm and a neighbor of Charles Duryea, according to a
statement by Charles in the _Automobile Trade Journal_ of Jan. 10, 1925.
He was then also of the opinion that this drawing may not have had
anything to do with the carriage they were about to assemble, but a
notation found by Charles at a later date has led him to believe that it
possibly concerned a business type vehicle he had discussed with an
unidentified Mr. Snow.
By early 1892 Charles needed capital to finance his venture, an old
carriage to attach his inventions to, a place to work, and a mechanic to
do the work. On March 26, he stopped by the Smith Carriage Company and
looked over a selection of used buggies and phaetons. He finally decided
on a rather well-used ladies' phaeton which he purchased for $70. The
leather dash was in so deplorable a state it would have to be recovered
before the carriage went onto the road, and the leather fenders it once
possessed had previously been removed; yet the upholstery appeared to be
in satisfactory condition, and the candle lamps were intact.
[Illustration: FIGURE 10.--PHANTOM ILLUSTRATION of Benz' first automobile.
(From _Carl Benz, Father of the Automobile Industry_, by L. M. Fanning,
New York, 1955.)]
Two days later, Charles was able to interest Erwin F. Markham, of
Springfield, sufficiently to obtain his financial aid in the project. A
contract was drawn up between the two men, which stated that Mr.
Markham was to put up $1000 for which he received a five-tenths share of
the venture. When the $1000 had been used, he then had the option to
continue his aid until the project had been carried to a successful
climax, and retain his half share, or to refuse further funds and
relinquish four of his five-tenths interest in the business.[10] Had he
eventually chosen the latter, Charles would obviously have had to seek
assistance elsewhere.
[Illustration: FIGURE 11.--THE HOWARD & CO. BILL showing the first work
performed toward a motor vehicle. While this may not refer specifically
to the machine now in the museum, it is evidence of early work.]
[Illustration: FIGURE 12.--THE SHOP OF JOHN RUSSELL & SONS. It was on
the second floor of this building that Charles and Frank Duryea built
their first motor vehicle. (Courtesy of the _Springfield Union_.)]
That same day, March 28, Charles found working space and machinery
available at John W. Russell & Sons Company in Springfield.[11] The
Russells had recently completed a large government order of shells for
the famous dynamite guns later used on board the cruiser _Vesuvius_ in
the Spanish-American War, and this left an entire second floor,
approximately 35 × 85 feet, virtually unoccupied, according to an
affidavit of William J. Russell of April 30, 1926. Now ready to begin
the actual work, Charles hired his brother Frank to start construction.
Frank started about the first of April, receiving a raise of about 10
percent over the salary he had received at Ames. Before the vehicle was
completed a number of other men performed work on some of the parts,
among them William Deats who had been hired by Charles primarily to work
on bicycles in the same area, but who occasionally assisted on the
carriage. Russell Company records show time charged against Charles
Duryea by six other Russell employees: W. J. Russell, P. Colgan, C. E.
Merrick, T. Shea, L. J. Parmelee, and A. A. Poissant.
[Illustration: FIGURE 13.--J. FRANK DURYEA looking over the Russell shop
lathe on which he turned parts for the first Duryea vehicle. Photo taken
about 1944. (Courtesy of the _Springfield Union_.)]
It is Frank Duryea's remembrance that he started work on Monday, April
4. He first removed the body, with its springs, and placed it on a pair
of wooden horses where it remained until the summer of the following
year. The next step was to remove the rear axle and take it to a
blacksmith shop where the old axle spindles were cut off and welded to a
new drop-center axle. Following this the front axle spindles were
removed, the ends of the axle slotted, and a webbed, C-shaped piece
carrying the kingpin bearings was fitted into each slot, braced from
underneath by short brackets which were riveted and brazed in place. The
old spindles then were welded to the center of offset kingpins which in
turn were mounted in their bearings in a manner similar to that in which
the frame of the Columbia high-wheeled bicycle was mounted in its fork.
Arms welded to the lower end of the kingpins were connected by the tie
rods to an arm on the lower end of the vertical steering column, located
on the center of the axle.
[Illustration: FIGURE 14.--A PORTION of the Russell shop records showing
charges made against Charles Duryea during 1893-1894.]
While work on the running gear advanced, some progress was made in the
construction of the engine. Patterns for the castings were fabricated,
most of them by Charles Marshall on Taylor Street,[12] and castings were
poured. The body or main casting of the engine resembled a length of
cast-iron pipe: it had no bosses or lugs cast on, nor any water jacket,
for they thought the engine would be kept cool merely by being placed in
the open air. The front end of the engine was secured to the vehicle by
four bolts which passed through the halves of the bearings and onto four
projections on the open end of the engine. As the crankshaft of this
engine was retained in constructing the present engine, it is logical
to assume that the bearings were the same also. The head was cast as a
thick disc, with both intake and exhaust valves located therein, and was
bolted onto the flanged head end of the engine.
Inside the cylinder was the strange arrangement previously suggested by
C. E. Hawley. To the connecting rod was attached a rather ordinary
ringed piston, over which was fitted a free, ringless piston, machined
to fit closely the cylinder bore. This floating piston could move freely
a distance equal to the compression space. The intention was that on the
intake stroke, suction would open the intake valve, which had no
positive opening arrangement, and draw in the mixture which then was
compressed as in a regular Otto engine. Fired by the hot-tube ignition
system, the force of the explosion would drive both pistons down,
forcing the outer one tight against the head of the smaller one, and at
the end of the stroke the longer wall of the outer piston would strike
an arm projecting into the cylinder near the open end, moving forward
the exhaust valve rod to which the arm was attached, thus pushing open
the valve in the head.[13] On the exhaust stroke the unrestrained outer
piston moved all the way to the head, expelling all of the products of
combustion and pushing the exhaust valve shut again. With a bore of four
inches or less, this engine, Charles believed, should develop about
three horsepower and run at a speed between 350 to 400 revolutions per
minute.[14]
As no ignition system had yet been provided, they prepared a 4-1/2-inch
length of one-quarter inch iron pipe, closed at one end, and screwed the
open end into the head. Heating this tube with an alcohol burner would
cause ignition of the mixture when a portion of it was forced into the
heated tube toward the end of the compression stroke. No attempt was
made at this time to use the electrical make-and-break circuit used in
their second engine, as the free piston would have wrecked the igniter
parts on the exhaust stroke, and the push rod located on the end of the
piston would have prevented the piston from closing the exhaust valve.
After keying the flywheel to the lower end of the crankshaft, Charles
and Frank decided to make an attempt to run the engine. Carrying it
into a back room, probably during July or August, 1892, they blocked it
up on horses. A carburetor had not yet been constructed, so they
attempted to start the engine by spinning the flywheel by hand, at the
same time spraying gasoline through the intake valve with a perfume
atomizer previously purchased at a drugstore in the Massasoit House.
Repeated efforts of the two men to start the engine resulted in failure.
[Illustration: FIGURE 15.--CONJECTURAL drawing of the free-piston engine
used in the Museum vehicle prior to the present engine. (Drawing by A. A.
Balunek.)]
In the belief that the defects, whatever they might be, could be
remedied after the engine was installed, the Duryeas went ahead and
mounted the engine in the carriage. To do this they shortened the
original reach of the carriage, allowing the engine itself to become the
rear continuation of the reach. The four ears on the front, or open end
of the engine, were bolted to the centrally located frame, with the
bearing blocks in between. This frame, the same one now in the vehicle,
was constructed of two pieces of angle iron, riveted and brazed
together. Greater rigidity was obtained by a number of half-inch iron
rods running from the frame to both front and rear axles. Because of the
absence of any mounting brackets on the engine casting itself, a wooden
block with a trough on top to receive the body of the engine was fitted
between the engine and the axle, while two U-shaped rods secured it with
clip bars and nuts underneath.
Beneath the flywheel was mounted the friction transmission of Charles'
design. This consisted of a large drum, perhaps 12 inches in diameter,
equal in length to the diameter of the flywheel and keyed to a shaft
directly under the center of the crankshaft and parallel to the axles.
(Diameter of drum estimated by examination of existing features.) In
view of the four projections of the frame extending downward and just in
front of the jackshaft position, it is likely that these supported the
four jackshaft bearings. Being a bicycle manufacturer, Charles saw the
need for a differential or balance gear. Accordingly, he purchased from
the Pope Manufacturing Company a very light unit of the type formerly
used on Columbia tricycles, and installed it somewhere on the jackshaft.
A small sprocket on each end of the shaft carried a chain from the
larger sprockets clamped to the spokes of each rear wheel. The lower
surface of the flywheel had been machined so as to form a friction disc,
with a one-quarter inch depression 3 inches in diameter turned in the
center. The drum was positioned so that its upper surface was
one-quarter inch below the face of the flywheel. Hanging loosely around
the drum was an endless belt, one and one-half inches wide, first made
of rather soft rubber packing material. The belt lay on the drum surface
between the fingers of a shipper fork. While it lay under the 3-inch
depression in the center of the flywheel, the belt and the drum were at
rest, but when it was moved away from that depression the belt wedged
itself tightly between the drum and flywheel, the resulting friction
causing the drum to turn and setting the vehicle into motion. The
farther the belt was moved toward the outer edge of the wheel, the
faster the drum and the vehicle moved.
In September 1892, Charles, who had contracted with a Peoria, Illinois,
firm to have bicycle parts manufactured, decided to move to that city.
Departing on the 22d of September, he did not return to Springfield for
over two years, and thus was not able to participate in the completion
and testing of the carriage. At the time of his departure several units
on the carriage were incomplete. A carburetor had not been built, nor
had a satisfactory burner or belt-shifting device. Charles had
experimented with various shifting levers just before leaving
Springfield: however, as he reported later, he did not succeed in
designing a workable mechanism.[15] Frank Duryea, now left to finish the
work unassisted, continued the experiments with the belt shifter. He
finally worked out a fork mounted on a carriage that was supported by
two rods, each of which slid in two bearings. Although the short
distance between the two bearings caused the shifter carriage to bind
occasionally, the device was thought to be sufficient and was installed
just in front of the frame. Connected to a system of cables, arms, and
rods, possibly similar to the present cam-bar shifter, the shipper-fork
carriage was moved from side to side by raising or lowering the tiller.
[Illustration: FIGURE 16.--DRAWING of the carburetor used on both Duryea
engines, 1893-1894, showing sight feed on left and choke mechanism on
right. (Smithsonian photo 13455.)]
Turning now to an efficient burner for heating the ignition tube, Frank
started with an ordinary wick-type kerosene lamp with a small metal
tank. Wishing to use gasoline in the lamp, he found it necessary to
fabricate a number of burner units before he found a type that gave him
a clean blue flame. He then found the flame to be very sensitive to
drafts and easily extinguished, and devised a small shield or chimney to
afford it some protection.
Early in October, while still working with the burner, Frank developed a
severe headache. He felt the fumes of the lamp had probably caused it,
and went to his room in the home of a Mr. and Mrs. Patrick on Front
Street in Chicopee. After he noticed no improvement, a doctor's
examination showed he had typhoid fever, and on October 5 he was
admitted to the Springfield Hospital. Here he remained for one month,
being discharged on November 5. Returning to his room he was informed
that because of the fear that he might be a typhoid carrier, the
Patricks preferred him to find other lodgings. He readily accepted the
invitation of Mr. and Mrs. D. H. Nesbitt of Chicopee to take a room with
them. After several weeks recuperation in their home, he left
Springfield to visit his mother in Wyoming, Illinois.
After a restful visit at home Frank Duryea returned to Springfield and
finished the work on his burner. Now only the lack of a carburetor
prevented a trial of the vehicle. He recalls that he studied several
gasoline-engine catalogs and in one of them, a Fairbanks catalog he
believes,[16] he saw a design that seemed to suit his needs. He decided
to simplify the construction and operation of his carburetor and had a
small bronze casting made to form the body of it. Inside was a gasoline
chamber with two tapped openings, one to receive a pipe from the
2-gallon gasoline tank mounted above the engine, the other taking a pipe
to the overflow tank underneath the engine, thus maintaining the
gasoline level without the use of a float valve. This latter tank had a
hand pump on one end so that the overflow gasoline could at times be
pumped again into the main tank. Gasoline passed from the carburetor
chamber through a needle valve, adjusted by a knob on top, then through
a tiny tube that entered the pipe leading to the intake valve. It is not
certain whether this intake pipe was at first fitted with the choke
arrangement later used with the second engine.
Frank, hoping at last to be rewarded for his efforts by the sound of
explosions from the engine, was ready to give the carriage an indoor
trial. Standing astraddle of the reach and facing to the rear, he spun
the flywheel with both hands, taking care not to get his hands caught
between the wheel and the frame. His efforts were in vain, as there was
complete failure to obtain ignition. He then made a new ignition tube,
nearly twice as long as the original 4-1/2-inch tube, and turned down
its wall as thin as he thought safety allowed. The thinner wall did not
conduct the heat off so rapidly and thus kept the tube hot enough to
permit ignition. After this slight change, he was able to get a few
occasional explosions but he does not now believe that the engine ever
operated continuously. Each explosion was accompanied by a loud knock,
due, undoubtedly, to the movement of the free piston. Had the engine
operated continuously, it is likely that the action of the free piston
would have shortly wrecked the engine. Further efforts appeared
unwarranted until alterations could be made.
[Illustration: ALL AGREEMENTS CONTINGENT UPON STRIKES, ACCIDENTS AND OTHER CAUSES
BEYOND OUR CONTROL