Not a garden tractor engine. Trailer pics added.

[B10Dave 1,785]

I went to a farm auction on Saturday. I used to work at the telephone company with the owner of the farm. All his equipment was sold along with a few consigned items. One of the consigned items was this Continental 6 cylinder industrial engine. It came from the town of St Marys Ontario. It was a backup engine on the pump that kept the old water tower full. It was used if there was a power outage. Since it only has 119 hours run time I guess the electricity supply is pretty reliable. I think most of the hours would be from readiness testing over the years it was in service. I will mount this engine on a dedicated trailer and take it to the area engine shows.If you look closely in the background of the first picture behind the garden sprayer you can see part of one of it's 4 cylinder brothers that I also have.

Picked up some channel iron today at about 2PM. Came home and cleaned up enough shop space to start my trailer for the engine. Could only work on it till 8PM. I am a little disappointed. I really wanted to get a good start on the trailer.

[TimJr 206]

My grandfather worked at Continental in Muskegon, MI for a short time during WWII. We are not sure what he did or what engines he worked on. He passed away back in the 1970's and it was just one of those subjects that my dad wishes he knew more about. Continental used to build some neat air cooled V-12's for tanks. I have a variety of tools that my dad always had been told were used by my grandfather when he worked down there. Neat engine. Tim

[720nut 4,225]

[yukon 331]

that is really neat.

[fishnwiz 3,290]

sweeeeeet:D

[Talntedmrgreen 1,978]

Very cool. I had no idea Continental was a Michigan company, much less with West Michigan roots.

[TimJr 206]

I can remember as a kid back in the 80's they still had an active tank test track right along business 31 and occasionally you would see them running the snot out of one through the woods and on the trails. My history may not be 100%, but it became Teledyne Continental at some point, and for quite some time it has been known as L3 Communications, at least at the Muskegon plant. For a while there was a really cool military concept truck you would see parked near the building that was maybe a replacement for some of the HUMVEE variations - looked like a desert racing truck - it was cool.

[isetta 50]

Hey that's a cool story. I have lived in Grand Rapids all my life and never knew about that. Thanks for sharing Tim!

[Gary 101]

If that's not a "good start", I'd like to see one!

[ss74nova 6]

WOW Dave! Nice trailer from scratch! Great to see a piece of history from the past. 8D

[PhanDad 3,616]

Thanks for sharing the pics and story.

[Simplicity7013H 95]

Looks good Dave!

[johnmonkey 4]

Real cool...I like the fab job on the trailer. JH