Karsten - Seagrave

Al, The ALF was the one I was looking for 2012...2014. Unfortunately without luck. Then I bought the Seagrave. ALF / Simplex are not so massive in design as Seagrave and in my oppinion are just beautiful. The Seagrave F6 Engine is an extrem workhorse and expects an even massive and good finish all arround . As soon as we have the details over I share and hope for comments how to do some things better. At the moment I have to decide if I leave the old patina on chromed parts or to polish them up and chrome again. I think I will leave the patina as it gives the worn out look of a well used classic car. What do you think? I found a museum close to Frankfurt: www.central-garage.de . It has the original Simplex engine drawings hanging in the shop... Hilarious!! Also the Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart and Museum Sinsheim are woth to take a closer look as they have a lot of expossés of our main interest and good for ideas! Best regards karsten

Hello Al, yes, I would like to keep thespoke wheels , as together with the F6, chain transmission it matches my idea of the speedster. Even considering the wheels with the 40x8 tires are huge. My wheelbase is 4,400 mm and I am considering cutting off 400 mm to shorten it. But this is beeing analyzed with some CAD drawings we are making. The proportion has to remain so it does not look weared after all.

I will borrow the F6 engine from my 1929 Seagrave pumper. The drivetrain has to look as original as possible. Meanwhile I have all parts together. The wooden spoke wheels are a headache, as they are in a pretty bad shape. I am exploring making the spokes of cast aluminum.

Yes, it is exciting!! Saturday Oct. 28. 2017 will be in my memories. The Seagrave 1919 Chassis arrived in Querétaro, MX and will be restored into a 1919 state of the art race machine. It was a 2 year journey to organize the shipping. The border crossing was a nightmare and loaded with adrenaline. Everything got complicated, as the chassis weight is over 5 tons and to find an adecuate transport a little more difficult than I expected. After a 1900 km voyage through Mexico it arrived safetly without major issues but the police, which on some terms needed to be convinced it was not a pre war military truck (!) to be converted into a Narcomobile... Well, phantasy raises in Mexico while they need some income increase. For now the dismanteling process of the overweight has begun. A huge 1000 gpm solid bronce water pump with a weight of far over 1 ton has to be lifted out carefuly. It is a precious piece of the era that will be restored later. My question now is if I should leave the patina on the old chromed parts, as it would look original and worn out, or to try to vanish the almost 100 year old history while polishing and chroming them. The chassis itself will be hot galvanized and painted. I think beige or dark grey would look good. Anyway, first of all gallons of WD40 are finding their way through, and every screw has to be checked and parts replaced if needed.

About 5 years passed since I read the first time about a eccentric race back 1907, where drivers had to manage 16.000 km from Peking to Paris. I was overwhelmed of this effort to prove horseless carriages were more reliable than traditional transportation, that the search for manufacturers of those big engines started. I focused on American Lafrance with the 6 cyl. simplex licensed engine when I found out that such a firetruck would be hard to find. 2014 finally I decided to acquire a 1929 Seagrave fire pumper with a 1000ci F6 T-head engine and brought it from the northern US down to Querétaro México. As soon as my buddies from the classic car club saw it, they prohibited to make any modification to the truck. It was in such a good shape that it has to remain as it is. I was convinced that I had to find another chassis, but with chain drive. Late 2015 I finally found exactly what I was looking for close to the mexican border. The chain drive is complete, also the chassis and suspension, the wooden spoke wheels would be fine after a good amount of work. The chassis has to be shortened to have a closer wheelbase. Some delay didn't allow me to bring the chassis down to MX, but I am confident to start the project mid 2017. Meanwhile I have been collecting a lot of information about the technical solutions different manufacturers hat that time for the chain drivetrain. So far, I present some pics of the actual status of the project.

I am looking since arround 4 years to get the components ready to build the speedster and have some pics of American Lafrance drivetrains and other museum models with chain drive that could interest you. I got a 1929 running Seagrave with the F6 engine. 18 spark plugs. Beautiful and thirsty. Arround 80 Hp at 1500 rpm. Seeking soon to build a 1919 speedster with a chaindrive drivetrain and finish it for the 100 aniversary...Just send me a message if you are interested sharing knowledge. https://www.facebook.com/Seagrave-1929-1454125271551417/?ref=settings

Hello Chase 392. How is your project going? I am also in a similar Seagrave project with chain drive and may have some info we could share