Dont see this every day!

kid that worked for me collects and restores/gets running all types of ancient stationary engines . there is amazingly to me a lot of people that collect and get these things running and go to farm shows with them

Those old 1 cylinder "make & breaks" only do about 90 RPM..lots of torque though.

single lung International Harvester engine. kind of like the Fairbanks Morse hit-n-miss engine.

to each their own I reckon....

This could certainly be considered a "Steampunk" build.

I want to see someone actually ride it.When that things fires off I bet it's hell on the drive train, probably even more awesome taking off off from a stoplight.

I saw the guy ride it in, quite controlled. Dont think it'd be too rough on the drive, that big flywheel oughta smooth things out.

I'd like to have seen it run through the gears as well

If it is a hit or mis I wonder if it will hold a constant speed?

These engines are quite misunderstood as far as the "Hit or Miss" aspect.
What it's all about is this: the ignition is on a cutout hooked to a governor. All it does is kill the sparks over a set RPM. If you've the engine under load, it won't cut out unless it over revs. And you can set the RPM at which it cuts out.

Oh, and the pot of water is simply a cooling device, The idea was to simply add cooler water if the thing got a bit hot.

So, its really just a big water-cooled single with a governor.

Cosmo

Interesting build, but it can't go very fast. Wonder what it will top out at?