Maytag 72 V-Twin

[MarylandSteam]

[Richard Swanson]

good looking engine! those engines were plentiful when I was growing up, we used to mount them on an old ironing board,belt drive with an idler to tighten the belt, steer with your feet and hang on, original GO carts or maybe death traps.

[MarylandSteam]

Is there some trick to editing a title or is it locked? title should be 72 instead of 92 but it won't let me fix it...

[Tom S]

I think you have to be a subscriber to edit.

This thing is nuts! Did you modify it?

In the V configuration, when using a stock crank shaft, would the pistons be at top dead center at the same time?? If not it must have taken some ignition modification too. I'd like to make one myself!

Lots of people call the twins 72's but that is just the model of Eisemann Ignition they used. Maytag called them the twin cylinder Multi-Motor. The 72 designation is more fitting to the fruit jar engine.

Thanks for sharing the pictures!

[MarylandSteam]

Cool I guess the title will just have to stay..., it's my dad's engine... I'll have to see if I can get some from him.

[John Newman, Jr.]

All I can say is: WOW!
You've taken one of the (at least in my opinion) best looking small engines made and managed to make it even better!
I would love to know what all was involved in making this and attempt to make one myself.
Please provide any information (& more pictures) you can.

[Andrew Mackey]

Cool looking engine If it is a runner, I suppose battery and coil ignition, and a crank alteration must have been nescessary, or else the engine is very ineffecient.
Andrew

[John Newman, Jr.]

I see no reason why the original magneto ignition would not work. The only difference would be in the relationship of the two crank pins to each other. As long as both pistons arrive at TDC at the same time everything else should still work. Balancing such a crank might prove moderately challenging, but not impossible.

[Andrew Mackey]

In any case, a lot of love and time went into this engine, it is a real neat piece Thanks for sharing!!!
Andrew

[MarylandSteam]

It definately runs, better than most horizontally opposed maytags i've seen actually... it has the same ignition plate, coil, etc as the normal ones.

He is looking for an eared base and a wico backplate (He has an extra flywheel...) to make it look nicer yet...

Matt
www.MarylandSteam.org

[D Reachard]

Why can't I down load these pictures??

[Bill Sherlock]

What happened to the origional post and picture(s) in this thread? All I get is a blank space???

Bill

[MarylandSteam]

They should be available now, send me a PM if they aren't...

I'll try to get newer pictures next time we take it to a show, these are from when he first put it together, it now has a different muffler and I gave him a Wico ignition and flywheel so It looks a better now, you can see the cylinders through the bigger fins when it's running...

I don't think I explained it before but the guys pretty much figured out how my Dad made it, it has a new crankshaft that was made from a solid 3" bar with the crank pins in a new location, it was balanced and the crankcase was machined from a solid block of steel.... no castings or welding and it was all done on manual machines, just a good milling machine with a rotary table and a lathe. Also custom adapters were made to route the exhaust from the new location down to an original exhaust manifold, these were also machined, no welds or castings. All together it was atleast 250 hours of machine time, this doesn't include design time (pencil and paper, no computers drawings) There are some other tricks involved but i was asked not to repeat that information...

He just finished a Paul Briesch new holland and has built a few other models, a 1/2 scale upright maytag, a steam engine, a hot air engine, etc. and does repairs and makes parts for engines, tractors and steam engines as well as magneto repair... and he did alot of machine work for my 1HP Mogul that was a basket case when I got it... I am finishing the painting over the next 2 weeks and I'll post pictures in a new thread when it's done, everything was gone over, stripped to bare metal and all moving parts were remade or reworked and bushings made to bring it back to original specs and I am laying a nice coat of automotive paint in a color I picked so it should turn out quite nice, it's the first engine I have restored, I brought a few maytags back to life but they were just simple repairs like rebuilding the carb and fixing the ignition, not a full rebuild.

He is also finishing up some brand new ignitors for 1HP moguls, no castings, all bar stock, hardened trip levers, etc we will have a couple to sell, we finished one the other weekend and have run his mogul on it for about 20 hours. He just has to finish assemble the others.

-Matt

www.MarylandSteam.org

[The Engineer]

thanks a great engine love it

[MarylandSteam]

We found some in progress pictures that I thought you all might like to see... the first is the piece of steel that became the crankcase (next to a regular twin crankcase...)



Here it's turned down and the cylinder surfaces were machined. Also the inside has been machined, there are several diameters and the 2 clearance areas for the connecting rods are radiused. A normal twin crank is test fit in this picture.



The bottom being machined, the center rib is where the crankcase bolts to the base. You can see the inside radius's in this picture.



Then the cylinder sleeve holes were bored. He had also chased the threads where the side bearing plate will thread in. Here you can see the radius inside where it meets the clearance hole for the sleeve/cylinder.

[MarylandSteam]

The next pic shows it almost finished, ports were added, bolts holes tapped, metal was removed between the cylinder plates, the outside was radiused to match the original cast crankcase and the bottom is finished. Mainly he just did some handwork after this picture to clean it up and knock off some of the square corners.



And last but not least, it was bead blasted, painted, and test fit with a regular twin crank, new bearings (same size as originals), cylinders and a bearing plate.



I hope you guys liked these, he did a ton of work... something like 250 hours of just machine time, not including painting and assembling the engine... I don't think we have pictures of the new crankshaft but that was made from a chunk of steel also.

Matt
www.MarylandSteam.info

[Oilzum]

Impressive work, love the fact that is was done conventionally and not on a CNC. Would have liked to have seen the crank. Do you know if he incorporated the stock governor in the new crank?.

[MarylandSteam]

Yeah he is pretty slick, there really isn't anything he can't make as long as it fits in his machines.

He'd like to get a little cnc but just for engraving and to save time doing things like bolt circles and curved parts where it takes less setup time on cnc since you can do contours without a rotary table.

I'll see if I can dig up pictures but the crank looks alot like a normal crank. The pins for the connecting rods are moved (90 degrees apart instead of 180), some material was removed near the crank pins to balance it (stock crank is basically symmetrical so it was naturally balanced) and it's shinier. The length, threads, diameters and throw are all the same, it uses stock pistons, rods, bearings etc. I think he used 4140 steel to make the crank.

Yeah it's the same governor, it's got all the same holes running through it that the stock crank had, but they are machined instead of cast...

[Andrew Mackey]

What a work of art! It must look realy neat with the Wico mag set up. In the Vee configuration, it probably puts out about 30% more power to the crank as well. send a pic of the latest look when you have a chance - we would love to see ti!
Andrew