Restorers are still searching

AWimmera group of restorers continue to persist with their long-term restoration project of a 1930s radio-transmitter engine found on a Banyena farm.

A farm-clearance sale of Banyena personality Ken Pipkorn’s extensive farming-machinery collection in October 2021 unearthed the 1934 diesel engine that powered the 3LK, the radio transmitter at Lubeck.

Pulled from a paddock, the gargantuan flywheel – the engine’s iconic identifier, along with the cast-iron engine block – were separated from the wider clearance sale for private offer to Dunmunkle Sumpoilers Machinery Preservation president Graham Gellatly.

The Sumpoilers, with a home-base at Murtoa, have set about cleaning saved parts from decades of decay, and indicated a search had started in earnest for crucial missing engine elements.

Mr Gellatly, after purchasing the 1934 Ruston Hornsby 9HRC diesel twin-cylinder horizontal engine in 2021, noted the engine was missing a piston, an inlet, exhaust valves, as well as fuel and oil pumps.

Sumpoilers secretary Doug Clark said the machine was sitting in the group’s Murtoa shed with parts soaking in diesel, and that a search for original parts had not yet yielded results.

“We knew a lot of its parts were missing when it arrived, but so far we haven’t found any replacements, he said.

“Some of them could perhaps be refashioned, but the focus is on finding original components as much as we can – but we will do whatever we need to get it running again.

“The group has been cleaning the engine and fixing a few of its bent and broken bolts – unfortunately some parts are missing, and we don’t know why, or how.

“It was left in the rubbish for so long and perhaps they got chucked out, or removed by someone – who knows really, but it is a shame.”

Mr Clark said group members were always keeping their eyes on opportunities, in Australia or overseas, for sales of similar equipment or engines that could be part-donors to the Lubeck engine.

However, he conceded it could take ‘forever’ to stumble on the required parts, but once the parts were found, the group could restore the ‘eight to nine-tonne’ engine within a few years.

“The end goal is to have the engine running for people at our open days, along with our other historic engines,” Mr Clark said.

“The Lubeck engine is a backburner project, but one we are very keen to finish.”

Mr Clark encouraged people with potentially historic equipment on their property to always consider the equipment’s community and monetary value before time and weather eroded restoration possibilities.