I f it’s an engine, Tom Porter’s interested. If it’s vintage speed stuff, doubly so.
Porter still builds engines the old-school way, with a record-player-style cylinder-head resurfacer, and a metal lathe, boring bar, drill press and connecting rod machine that came with the shop he took over from Tommy Adelmann, who founded it over 60 years ago.
Porter even taught himself to pour babbitt bearings because people bring him engines from the earliest days of the automobile. He’s rebuilt motors from a 1903 Oldsmobile, 1905 Cadillac and a 1911 Hirshoff—the only one its owner knows of in the world. Most of these run in the brass-era New London to New Brighton run each summer in Minnesota, an homage to England’s London to Brighton event.
At any given time, engines from across most of the automobile’s history are on hand. Parts stores go back further, to the 1920s and before. Most are new old stock components in their original boxes picked up by Adelmann and Porter over the years to keep customers’ old iron chuffing along. These antique and classic supplies share shelf space with modern overhead cam and multi-valve components and references.
People with unusual vehicles are always asking Porter if he rebuilds engines from Maserati or Ferrari or Franklin or DeSoto. He replies, “does it have pistons that move up and down and a crankshaft that turns around?”
Click the MORE INFO tab above for the full story by Kris Palmer.
Photos by Jerry Lee.
By Kris Palmer
Sixty years ago, a resourceful driver named Tommy Adelmann spotted a race car in a farmer’s field. To the untrained eye, it looked more like an abandoned Model T but Adelmann saw beyond the present car to its future potential. He cut a deal, towed it home, lopped off the roof and had a fabricator friend turn down the edge of the cockpit nice and smooth. Adelmann dropped in a flathead V8, added 1930s wire wheels and fitted an Indy-car nose in front of an open engine bay. In the center of the cockpit he bolted a World War II bomber surplus jump seat. White paint and a red “111” and “Tommy” finished the look. That’s what a he saw in the farmer’s pasture.
Adelmann drove the 111 to the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, where he won the track’s first hot rod race in 1946. His reputation on the track helped provide a customer base when he set up shop rebuilding and uprating engines for street and track. About 1980, he took on Tom Porter, who took over the business when Adelmann retired. Along with the shop’s other contents, Porter inherited the hot rod Model T that so many racers looked at from behind on post-war dirt tracks. The car sat, disassembled, in Adelmann’s shop for decades.
Today, Porter has reassembled the ’T racer in the same style Adelmann built it with for the 1946 race. He has the same Model T body and paint, a Model T frame, tall, thin, mid-’30s wire wheels—which he’s widening, the surplus jump seat, and a flathead Ford, built up with twin Chandler-Greaves carburetors (the predecessor to Holley), high-compression heads, and fitted with the better Mercury crankshaft.
Porter still builds engines the old-school way, with a record-player-style cylinder-head resurfacer, and a metal lathe, boring bar, drill press and connecting rod machine from Adelmann’s old shop. Porter even taught himself to pour babbitt bearings because people bring him engines from the earliest days of the automobile. He’s rebuilt motors from a 1903 Oldsmobile, 1905 Cadillac and a 1911 Hirshoff—the only one its owner knows of in the world. Most of these run in the brass-era New London to New Brighton run each summer in Minnesota, an homage to England’s London to Brighton event.
Although Porter has moved the shop from its original Central Avenue location to its current spot 5 minutes from his home, Adelmann Engine retains virtually all of the vintage machinery, tools and manuals accumulated over its 60-plus year history. Parts stores go back further, to the 1920s and before. Most are new old stock components in their original boxes picked up by Adelmann and Porter over the years to keep customers’ old iron chuffing along. These antique and classic supplies share shelf space with modern overhead cam and multi-valve components and references.
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