Sold July 2015 Back to Archive

We sold this one last year, it's just come back as part exchange against a 4 inch scale engine. You may remember it's the one our Geoff took home a year or two back and re-engineered to his own exacting standards - no sooner was it done than he wanted another project, so this one came back and he took off rebuilding a 3 hp Petter (which is now done and looks superb, but that's another story).

Pictures below were taken this afternoon in the yard, words below are from last year.

Regular readers may remember that our Geoff sometime takes off with an engine from stock - it disappears into his shed at home, every lunchtime for weeks we hear what he's doing with it until it reappears. Usually look nice, invariably run beautifully - the last one he did was a Polly II which remains the nicest one I've driven.

A year or two ago he took off with this Aveling that came in. Work on it has been steady - there are always members of his oil engine club queuing up for help with their projects from the local expert - but it popped back out of the shed a couple of weeks ago, in time for the boiler inspector's visit. We've all oo-hed and aa-hed over it, all had a drive of it (everybody except Geoff actually - he doesn't drive steam engines), the boiler inspector gave it his seal of approval and then... Geoff decides it needs to go so he can get on with the next project in the shed.

So. Here we have a Maxitrak Aveling steam tractor, silver soldered copper boiler, 90psi working pressure, feed by injector and mechanical pump. Cast iron cylinder with slide valve actuated by Stephenson's gear, pole reverser. Mechanical lubricator. Two road speeds, rubber tyres.

We think this is as well sorted an Aveling as you're likely to find this side of Staplehurst (and if you come on a day Geoff's here, be prepared for a thorough briefing on what's been done to it!)