The restoration of a Mobile Steam car

​Here in Sweden we have an expression ... "to slip in through a banana peel".
It means most easily translated that you completely unaware suddenly find yourself in an unexpected situation, and that this then leads to a continuation.
So it was for me, suddenly I had a steam car in my garage that I would try to get started. I stumbled into steam cars, and since then, I am in love.
 
Before the Locomobile was delivered to Sparreholms museum, we invited the local press as well as members of an association whose stated goal is to preserve our hometowns industrial history, the association is called "Primus Motor".
These were invited to attend a test run of the Locomobile, it was also at this time that the movie was filmed.
This meeting when we told about the renovation and demonstration drove the car resulted in a small newspaper announcement and got attention in Primus Motors member magazine "the Driving Force".
 
Rumors spread, someone read about our renovation in “the Driving Force" mentioned this to someone else ... and so on.
A few months later, I received a phone call, there was a man living about 1100 km away from me.
He told us he heard that we completed a Locomobile, the guy who called, his name is Tomas, told me that he had 3 early steam cars in boxes for 10 years.
He had bought them from an older man who started the restoration but could not completed it.

Tomas asked if we could imagine helping him to complete the cars to driveable condition.
So me and my comrade Sven sat in the car and drove 1100 km to see what was hidden in Tomas's boxes.
It turned out that it was a Locomobile type 1 from 1899, a Mobile 1900 and a Stanley 1903.
 
If you once have fallen in love with steam cars, you can’t say no to the opportunity to once again get into the wonderful world of the steam driven cars.
Of course, we said we would be willing to undertake to renovate Tomas cars, at least those to be driven by steam ... ..
 
After a few discussions, we decided to start with the Mobile, it was on its wheels, there was a boiler in it and there were a lot of parts to it.
Unfortunately, the Mobile was in very bad condition when it came to the body, the wood was bitten badly.
But Tomas wanted to keep the Mobile in its original condition as far as possible, resonating so that "there are many top refurbished steam cars, but the original ones are not so many."
And he is right in that, in addition, there is nothing that prevents the body from being restored at a later date.
So our mission was to complete the car in terms of mechanics, steam, water and fuel systems.
 

The Mobile arrives on Tomas's transport car

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When the car arrived at our workshop, it was time to decide what order we would do for the work.
We agreed that if the boiler would have to be replaced, we had to expect a long delivery time, so we started with the boiler and burner.
Something that turned out to be a wise decision.
The boiler was probably the same boiler that had been in the car since it was new.
The bottom of the boiler and the lid were made of iron and the pan in copper, of the piano wire wrapped around the boiler there were only a few leftovers left.

​Unfortunately, it was found that the boiler lid was heavily attacked by rust so it was excluded that it would be used.
It had to be a newly created boiler from Bourdon.

The burner was not so beautiful either, but it was possible to repair, a laborious enough work

​114 burners with air intakes in the middle and 20 small holes around

​2280 small holes to clear ....
 

​Perseverance wins
 

​As you can see in the picture, the burner burns very fine, but quite honestly ... .. this construction is not quite optimal.
Sure, it's good to have a lot of oxygen available, but the air we breathe contains 20.95% Oxygen, the remaining 79.05% is mostly nitrogen, and nitrogen adds nothing, it just cools.

But the burner is original, and Tomas wants his car as close to the original as possible. So then it's the right burner, even if it's relatively powerless.
 
Have a nice summer all Steam Brothers, I'll be back about the renovation of Tomas Mobile.
// Gunnar Modig