By Don Hartman

Kids these days can identify a song and the artist within the first 10 seconds of hearing it. They can also tell you what video game it is within seconds of seeing it on a TV screen.

My talent as a kid was telling if it was a Cat, Detroit, Deere, Perkins, IH, Waukesha, Moline, Cummins or Continental red-seal motor by hearing it run for 10 seconds. I was around enough engines as a kid I could identify them by the sound. I remember Chrysler’s, Oldsmobile’s, Chevrolet’s and Ford’s too. Believe it or not they all have their own unique sound.

Growing up working on a farm, we didn’t have video games much less time to sit and play them.

We learned how to work on old pump engine’s because we had to keep the water running. Here in the desert crops won’t grow without water and we only get about 7” of rain a year so we have irrigation wells for water. Back then there were a few electric motors and the rest were internal combustion engines that ran on natural gas, or diesel connected to gear heads.

I remember one time my wife’s uncle who I worked for, had a 605 continental red seal industrial engine. That thing developed a miss, it was sporadic. It started missing occasionally. So we changed the spark plugs. Nope, that didn’t work. So we changed the wires. Still didn’t fix it. So we checked the magneto. Have you ever had to check a mag? There are only 3 ways I know of to check a mag.

1. Take it to someone who has a magneto test stand. (Usually a professional that charges money, and you are also losing valuable time).
2. Crank the motor and look at the color of the spark, if you can see it. (If it’s an orange color spark then it’s weak. If it’s a baby blue color spark it’s good and strong).
3. Then there is the “by feel method”. (The dreaded method of last resort. If it feels like a needle prick it’s weak. If it bites like a pit bull, makes your hair stand up and your bones hurt, well it’s a good strong spark and a good mag).

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So after me glowing in the dark, twitching, nerves shot from shock therapy, and many hours of piddling, we thought we had it fixed and we left.

Now those old motors weren’t equipped with mufflers, they just had straight pipes. So on a calm night you could hear them purring for miles. That sound at night was like a lullaby at bedtime just singing you to sleep. But later that night it became a nightmare! You see when it’s running good and purring like a kitten all is well. But when a motor starts missing; well it’s like a bad dream. It wakes you out of deep sleep with that horrible sputtering sound. It’s like nails on a chalkboard!

Days went by piddling with that old motor. We changed plugs and wires at least 3 times. We checked the magneto. We even checked compression to see if we had a burnt valve (which didn’t make sense). Nothing. It just wouldn’t run smooth at times. So we just had to let it run with that sporadic miss. It was irritating to listen to at night. I was losing sleep and everyone was getting grumpy. Even the neighbors were consulted, it’s a bad thing when you bring in the neighbors for their opinion. Nobody had a clue.

So it was just gonna have to run with a miss till the end of the season was the final decision. We would have to tear into it when winter came, and when we had time and also didn’t need the water.

Well I was in bed and fast asleep when I had me a dream. I was dreaming of working on that motor. You see those old motors had what they call a Murphy switch on them. So we’ve all heard of Murphy’s Law, right? If anything can go wrong, it will. Well, if anything goes wrong with that motor that Murphy switch is supposed to catch it early and shut off the engine to prevent damage. I don’t know if the switch and the saying were related or not but it sure makes a fella wonder if that’s were the term came from.

That switch usually had the oil pressure and temperature gauge tied to it. If the engine got hot or it lost oil pressure the needle would touch a peg and ground out the magneto and kill the engine so you wouldn’t burn up and ruin the motor.

So in my dream I dreamt that there was a loose wire on that Murphy switch. It was so real and lifelike that I woke up. I sat there trying to figure out if it was real or a dream. So the next morning, I slipped my britches on, grabbed my shirt, and pulled on my boots, and out the door I went. It was early but I had it fixed in my dream so it was worth a shot. I got to that motor and it was sputtering like a drowning 14 year old boy in a swimming hole, and I went straight to the Murphy switch. I started wiggling wires and sure enough found one that made the motor cut out. So all I did was tighten the nut on the back of that switch and it didn’t miss anymore.

So, the lesson today is that sometimes we make big problems outta small things, and also sometimes we need to just sleep on it and it’ll all work out.

Truth be known, nowadays I lift the hood on a pickup or a tractor and it looks like a giant rats nest. I don’t even know where to start. In some ways I really miss the old days.