Belchfire IV
The Poor Man's Mercer
In the mid sixties, I decided I wanted to try to find a 1911 Mercer Type 35R Raceabout. I finally did find one but, at the time, the $10,000 price tag for a nearly complete and very restorable example was beyond my finances. In retrospect, I should have found the money somehow because today that same car would be worth a LOT more than it was then.
Anyway, I decided that I had to have an open, bucket seat car with a BIG 4-banger in it. I lucked into a really clapped-out and non-running 1917 American LaFrance ladder truck that I could afford.
It was exactly what I wanted. All of the fire equipment was gone and I didn't feel bad about doing a little metal work on it.
Originally, it was about 37 feet long. I cut 3' 6" from the frame behind the rear spring hangers and then cut 10' 6" out of the middle of the frame, leaving just enough space for a 6" long driveshaft. I made a new firewall and had a cylindrical tank made to be the main gas tank. The original tank was mounted between the hand made bucket seats and the main tank. I made a trunk to go behind the main tank and a spare tire mount at the end.
The differential ratio was 2.4:1 and the original chain drive ratio was about 2:1 (21 teeth to 41 teeth) which was definitely too slow for the 1,500 RPM maximum of the engine so I removed the drive sprockets and had them turned to accept new 41 tooth sprockets. New drive chains were installed.
Although I got the engine to run, it had a knock and, when I tore it down, I found that one of the wrist pin lock bolts had fallen out and the pin had grooved the cylinder wall. The rod bearings were also cracked. I sent off the rods for rebabitting and the cylinder pair went to the shop to be sleeved. Everything else looked okay so when the parts came back, I put it back together. I made up a dandy 4" exhaust header with cutout and muffler and after repairing the Eisemann GR-4 magneto, fixing the clutch and doing some other work, I put in a battery (it had electric start) and fired it up. Powerful! That was all I could say for the sound of 570 cubic inches coming out of that 4 inch stack!
Since it had never been licensed, I had it registered as a LaFrance Model 2014 Raceabout (2014 was the serial number).
I took it to it's first show of many in 1968. On the road, it would turn about 1,300 RPM at 70 MPH and turned a lot of heads. Ond did have to be careful, though. It only had two wheel brakes. "Think ahead!" was the rule. At times, we'd have to drive at night and I always enjoyed the flaming exhaust. I added an explosion whistle and you could hear me coming for a mile!
Over the years, I replaced the original fenders and made the aluminum clam shell fenders. The "Belchfire IV" script was cut out of 1/8" brass sheet. The original Westinghouse generator was trashed so a generator from a '35 Ford was mounted under the frame, driven off the driveshaft. The Eisemann mag finally got sickly so I replaced it with a Farmall F-10 mag modified for battery ignition. I also got tired of the smell of breather smoke when tooling down the highway at 70 MPH, so I tore the engine back down and had a set of aluminum pistons and wrist pins made by Jahns. The new pistons were grooved for modern rings and the breather smoke was a thing of the past. While I was about it, I had new mains cast and a friend and I spent an enjoyable (but tiring) day putting the crankshaft in and out while scraping the bearings to fit.
Well, ol' Belchfire and I ran around together 'til I got married then Elaine and I continued doing shows and fun trips for a number of years but, as usually happens, we drove it less and less until, finally, all I did was to start it occasionally. In the late nineties, a guy decided he wanted it more than I did so he parted with some cash and got a nice little 4-cylinder sports car. I hope Belchfire is happy in it's new home!
Wanna hear what it sounds like - Just click here but beware - the file is over 400kB!