2 RESTORED KONIG B-ALKYS FROM THE 1950s

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

These pictures of 2 wonderfully restored Konig B Alkys from the 1950s are a must show for the historical record contained on this site of some of the racing engines that made our sport so interesting in those early heady days where things we not only possible but were done.

Pictures are courtesy of restorer / enthusiast and collector Len Gullickson. (USA) Thanks Len. Like I mentioned to you, these pictures are framed and proudly so displayed on my rec room wall as testiment to your contributions to saving, restoring and displaying our outboard racing history in race engines. Now they are here too for others to see and appreciate. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Please see picture batch - 2 of these wonderfully restored B - Konig Alkys

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

:) SORRY ABOUT THAT! :) I didn't read the backs of the four part single pictue of each engine. Beautiful restorations no matter what.

The Konig with the pinched / joined in the middle cylinder head is a B - Alky Konig.

The Konig with what appears as two separate cylinder heads is the C - Alky.

Again, I am sorry about the oversight. :)

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

You have to hand it to Merc, everyone liked those steering bars and the ones on the Konig B and C Alkys are no different.

[smittythewelder]

John, if you ever see a stock Konig steering bar from those days, you'll see why racers in the States used Merc bars (and Merc clamp brackets, too).
I think maybe those are not period-correct restorations. I don't think Konig used 2-into-1 exhaust on those engines at that time. The FB came set up with the cylinders exhausting out opposite sides; with the cylinders set up as the pictured engine is, the combustion chamber ends up in the "wrong" place for one cylinder. It may not make a lot of difference, and for that matter, I'm not one who gets excited about period-correctness or factory-correctness or any other kind. Alky outboard engines were constantly altered by the racers, and our restorations standards should recognize this. I help owners of '50s Corvettes with their restorations, and we don't need that kind of anal-retentive obsession with "correctness." Your friend did a nice job.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

I know what you mean about the Merc steering bars being the best for a whole host of engines. I have original steering bars for the Anzanis, the Crescent 500 but I use Mercury racing ones on all of them too without exception.

The other day I requested information on Quincy Flathead block serial number FD-40 it being a D class Alky. The number indicates it was an earlier made D due to its low number but this one sports all Quincy castings from front to back being no Mercury front crankcase cover as it should have. It was like this because of its being upgraded from time to time that made it current for each period it went through. Old engine but new look! Same pie just fresher fruit! :)

[F-12]

John...........Those are a beautiful site to see. It brings back memories of Hap Mulvany's FC Konig with Melvin Cooper driving and putting to shame just about everything that showed up. His C motor was dependable and he raced it for 4 or 5 seasons before he decided to pull it down to inspect it 'Just in case'. Len did a great job.

[Mark75H]

Those 2 into 1 pipes might actually be Quincys! O.F. built them for the enemy, too!

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

I keep looking at some of the pictures and I am asking myself if that is some kind of shadow I am seeing or is here an actual hole in the crankcase side of one of the engines in the picture?? I know that collectors will put even what is left over from an engine failure into a what is left display engine too because there is no way of getting the parts they need to get the display engine back to 100% until at later times when the parts are obtained by search circumstances that can take years to accomplish. Its an interesting observation to these two interesting display engines.

[F-12]

John, if you compare the two pictures where the dark spots are, they are in different positions in each photo. I would vote for a shadow.

[smittythewelder]

Right about the Quincy siamese pipes for Konigs, Sam; Jack Reed had one on his FC when he set the competition record in '64.
Uhhhh, I'm looking at the cylinder head on that FB, and the plugs look to be offset to the same side; never saw that before. So the owner has the cylinders pointed the "right" way after all. Interesting. Must be a better Konig historian around here than me, who can remember all this stuff . . . ??

[Mark75H]

Mr. Litzell stops by once in a while, but no one really took the time to start from the beginning and some parts of the Konig story are fuzzy.

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Yes, I think that is more than likely shadows because I compared some more pictures that show those areas intact in those. Just gotta get those camera gun slingers with their digitals to try a little harder not to get their shadow on what they are photoing it especially that has auto-flash that won't work on a sunny day if set that way, so we these kind of shadows, that a true fill in flash would not allow.

I got to thinking about how much it would take to restore an Anzani I have that not only lifted/blew both the piston crowns off but also fired its rods out the front of the crankcase as they broke never mind them bouncing off the cast iron block too tearing out the cast iron port holes, where people 50 feet away got their clothing penetrated by shcrap! Never in a million years! The way everyone ran away from it all that was left behind were shadows of where they once stood! LOL! :)

[Jeff Lytle]

I had people running away from my FB too before I switched to phelon CD. The fiber gear on top of the mag parted ways and sent the pieces flying!!

[John (Taylor) Gabrowski]

Anzanis with that Prince of Darkness - Lucas magento had a similar gear drive system where the gear ring was under the flywheel, meshing to the fiber gear on the Lucas magneto. The factory mount was very hard on the fiber gear so the fibergear was redrilled to accomodate round rubber plugs and then capped to hold the gear in a buffered rubber mounting system. Gear life improved dramatically :)

[Jeff Lytle]

The Konigs that had Bosch or Sems magnetos had the same thing too. It just seemed that shimming the buggers so they had the parfect lash and alignment was the issue.

RUN AWAY !!! RUN AWAY !!! :D