Coldwell Twin Cylinder

[Ragu]

This is another engine that came with the group of engines I recently purchased. It is a Codwell Twin Cyl. 30" ser# Z1148, built in New York State.It is a horizontal with a small flat belt driven fan and radiator built on top of the engine. Its been in storage for about 20 years that I know of. Has compression but have not tried to start. It even has a little casted Bear as the oil filler cap. Anyone know much about these little engines?

Thanks Ragu

[Andrew Mackey]

Coldwell made lawnmowers of fine quality. The bear is usually found on the Coldwell built single cylinder, the Cub. The twin is an alternate firing twin, with a 360 degree crank. It fires every top center, giving even power strokes. The twin has a large common throw on the crank, with the ends machined for the rods, no center support bearing. The engine will idle nicely on a display, but is notoriously not well balanced from just off idle up! If you plan to rev the engine up, you must anchor it well. When it was built, balance wes not a real issue, as the machine it was mounted on weighed in excess of 300 pounds! As a side note, a friend had one of these engines. they are assembled with a camshaft for each cylinder. My friend installed both cams so that the cylinders came up on compression and fired at the same time. The engine bounced like hell but made tons of power. Idle speed was set high as the compression of both cylinders at the same time would stall it under 1500 RPM. The twin I own can be idled down to about 150 RPM. There are 2 versions of the twin that I know of, the engines seem identical with the exception of the carbs and the ignition. The earlier engine has a large magneto flywheel (about 8" or 9"diameter), with squared edges. The later engine has a smaller (7") wheel with a rounded edge facing away from the engine body. Both used a thin flat belt to run a fan that forced air thru the condenser mounted on top of the cylinders. These engines ran hot!
Andrew

[Ragu]

Thanks Andrew for the info ! It's a nifty looking engine but most likely I will be ebaying to recoupe some $$ and put towards other engines I am working on. It also came with a box of spare parts that I will ebay. I havn't got the storage space for all these engines. My shop is 24' x 40' and its full.

Regards
Ragu