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.

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.

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 4½-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.

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