Glort,they used a lot of oilfield engines in the hills of pennsylvania and liked them loud so they could tell they were still running out in the woods.They had what was called rod houses with long steel rods extending out to pump oil from the many small wells.Prehaps all the listers are bolted down working instead of doing the show circuit.I agree about having engines gainfully employed at shows,my favorite was a one banger hooked to an antique rope twisting machine or shingle mill. Frank C.
Frank,
Were these rods arranged radially on an eccentric rotating hub ? And did the exhausts have what they called a barker fitted to give each engine a distinctive signature exhaust note ? Just reminded me of something I`ve seen somewhere.
Where I lived in the 1960s, on every still morning and evening around 5.00 till 6.30 I could hear from a farm a mile and a half away the drone of an unsilenced vacuum pump and the steady pop- pop -pop of what must have been an unsilenced low speed single cyl engine driving it at milking times.
The dailly single phase power at my workshop is presently provided by a 1946 CS driving a modern alternator, the CS only recently replaced a 1933 CD, these old girls are far more pleasant to hear running than the modern (1950s on) 1500 rpm engines.
Mark.