366 ANTSrUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1961 



in 1928, it was necessary to substitute for the missing parts the crank- 

 shaft and flywheel of the 1904 motor. A handwritten memorandum 

 among the Wright papers in the Library of Congress (dated 1945 

 and initialed O. W.) attests to this substitution: "Crankshaft and 

 flywheel of 1904 motor, with modification to fit 1903 chain-guide bear- 

 ing, now in 1903 motor." 



Additional information about this engine was furnished by Charles 

 E. Taylor in an article that appeared in the May 1928 issue of the 

 journal Slipstream. A partial quotation follows: 



Orv and Will then asked me to help them build the motor for their first power- 

 driven machine. They had a little workshop where they built and repaired 

 bicycles at 1927 West Third Street. As I recall we first hit upon the idea of an 

 air-cooled motor but we decided after some figuring that it would weigh more 

 per horsepower than a water-cooled type so we settled upon the latter. I do 

 not know but that if we could have secured the light alloys available today we 

 would have gone ahead with the air-cooled job. 



The first thing we did as an experiment was to construct a sort of skeleton 

 model in order that we might watch the functioning of the various vital parts 

 before venturing with anything more substantial. Orv and Will were pretty 

 thorough that way — they wouldn't take anything for granted but worked every- 

 thing out to a practical solution without too much haste. I think that had a 

 lot to do with their later success. 



When we had the skeleton motor set up we hooked it to our shop power, 

 smeared the cylinders with a paint brush dipped in oil and watched the various 

 parts in action. It looked good so we went ahead immediately with the construc- 

 tion of a four cylinder engine. I cut the crank shaft from a solid block of steel 

 weighing over a hundred pounds. When finished it weighed about 19 pounds. We 

 didn't have spark plugs but used the old "make and break" system of ignition. 

 The gas was led in and made to spread over the chamber above the heated water 

 jackets and this immediately vaporized it. Of course, we had real gasoline in 

 that day — fully 76 proof and you could count on it going into action at the least 

 excuse. 



The cylinders of that first motor were made of gray iron as were the pistons. 

 As I recall those cylinders were from % inch to %6 inch in thickness. So far 

 as I know that was the first four cylinder engine ever built. The automobile 

 manufacturers were out of the picture then and the Oldsmobile firm was the only 

 one I was familiar with at that time. We tried to get a motor built there but 

 they couldn't make one near the low weight we wanted. The old one-lunger 

 auto engines of that day really weighed more than our entire flying machine 

 with the first motor installed. 



When the engine was ready for block test we rigged up a connection with 

 natural gas, put on a resistance fan and made several block runs in this manner. 

 Later we used gasoline fuel and found the motor would run satisfactorily. That 

 first motor developed around 18 h.p. and weighed around 190 pounds. We were 

 all highly pleased at being able to hold down the weight to this figure but a 

 short time afterward we built another motor that produced around 45 h.p. and 

 which weighted about the same as the first one. 



When we installed the first motor in the original machine it lay on its side 

 to the right of the pilot and in such a position that the pilot's weight partially 

 off -set that of the motor. The radiator was made from speaking tubes flattened 

 to reduce the capacity. 



Yes, I must admit there wasn't much to that first motor — no carburetor, no 



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