The aftermarket suppliers

[smittythewelder]

Down in the Depue thread there's an old black and white photo of a step hydro coming out of the pits. The engine on the transom is a Fifties-era Konig deflector B engine, and in asking for memories about those engines I mentioned that Turner was making replacement pistons for them. That got me to thinking about the outboard piston-makers and their history. The old-timers here could surely tell us a lot about Turner, Levandusky, somebody named Salih(sp?), Clyde Wiseman, Mahle, who else? Was Quincy casting their own pistons, or did they always get them from Levandusky? Did Konig have a supplier before he went with Mahle? Did Hubbell make pistons? If anybody remembers a lot of answers on this, maybe others than me would be interested.

Well that idea led to the thought that maybe there could be a stand-alone thread on "The Suppliers," or some-such, so we could talk about (and honor, because we owe them that) the aftermarket suppliers of parts, guys like Hubbell, Dick O'Dea, Leonard Keller, and such. Guys mostly working in their home shops, on their own manual lathes and mills and drillpresses, turning out parts for the tiny market of alky/mod/stock outboard racers. These individuals, past and present, deserve a place in the historical spotlight, and our thanks.

[oldalkydriver]

I remember in the mid fifties, my father (Bob Jackson) and John Toprahanian used to buy cast pistons from Hubble. I don't know if they were cast by him, but it was my job to turn them down so far! After my dad and John had their little squabble over a $13.00 electric bill, John converted his garage on Landis to a shop. I used to go there and turn down pistons from Hubbell. When John started fooling around with the 'yamarude' he sand cast his own pistons. As well as carburetor's. Evan in the late 60's early 70's when I was desperate for money (often) I would drive to John's turn pistons, carburetor's, and now steering wheel assemblies for De Silva on an old lathe that had more play then a loose tooth. I don't know if that is the answer you are looking for? It sure was a lot of fun in those days.

[Bill Van Steenwyk]

Stanley Leavendusky Sr. and Quincy Flathead Pistons for same:

The information contained here is based on the best recollection of Stanley "Butch" Leavendusky Jr., son of Leavendusky Sr., and driver of the equipment campaigned by Leavendusky Sr. after he quit actively driving himself. "Butch" has stated that his memories may be a year or two off, before or after the time frame indicated here, but the basic facts are correct.

When Quincy came out with the Flathead models after having much success modifying the factory deflector Mercs, the first pistons used were of a sand cast variety made by themselves. From the first they seemed to have problems with the sand cast variety of piston, and within a year or so of the introduction of the motor, and probably because Leavendusky Sr. in his home shop business was being approached by users/racers of the Flatheads to try to solve the piston problems being encountered, Stan Sr. made a permanent mold for the Flat head pistons and started having them cast where he was employed, ACE Pattern and Foundry, which was owned by another former boat racer, the father of Tom Berry who has also posted here on BRF with photo's and stories of racing in the late 60's and early 70's by Kansas City Speedboat Association members.

Stan Sr. worked for Tom's father as a pattern maker, saw the need for a better piston, and made a permanent mold so as to cast them. Stan Sr., along with Tom's father, also changed the formula of the aluminum being used in the manufacture of the Quincy pistons, and the combination of making them in a permanent mold and changing the type of aluminum used in the making of them, seemed to solve the problems that were being experienced by Quincy when making them themselves. Based on that relationship, with Stan Sr. making the pistons and furnishing them to Quincy, which solved the piston problem, the relationship continued until the early 1970's, or the time when the Quincy Flatheads ceased to be competitive with other motors being used in ALKY/PRO racing at the time.

As to the reason that the problems existed with the original Quincy piston, the specifics of that have been lost to time, and my experience with the Flatheads came after they were using his pistons, so I don't know whether it was a "sticking" or burning problem, or they were just coming apart, but both Butch and I remember being in Stan Sr's basement workshop and hearing him mention poor quality aluminum/not the right type for pistons, mentioned many times. The phrase "Japanese beer cans" was also used several times, which should not surprise anyone who knew Stan Sr., and was familiar with his unhappiness with things not made the correct way based on his very intense/correct way of trying to make or fabricate anything he was involved with.

In addition to the pistons furnished for Flatheads over most of the racing lifetime of the motor, he also made pistons for the various models of rotary valve Konigs, from a similar type permanent type mold. He also fabricated some of the first "stick" type tower housings, after the increased speeds of the Flatheads on Merc stocker type tower housings broke under the increased power/speed causing some accidents which resulted in injuries to drivers. Much work was also done on Speeditwins for the C-Service classes and he was also known for his rebuilding of Konig and other type racing lower units. He was a National Champion in what at the time was called C Racing Runabout, using a PR for power. Later on his son "Butch" followed in his Championship footsteps with a win in the same class at Ackworth, Georgia., with the class now known as 500 PRO Runabout.

Hopefully this will add some to the stories of those who made parts, worked on motors, etc., which allowed those, especially in the PRO and MOD categories to race when presented with equipment problems not solved with factory help.

[John Schubert T*A*R*T]

Stanley Leavendusky Sr. and Quincy Flathead Pistons for same:

The information contained here is based on the best recollection of Stanley "Butch" Leavendusky Jr., son of Leavendusky Sr., and driver of the equipment campaigned by Leavendusky Sr. after he quit actively driving himself. "Butch" has stated that his memories may be a year or two off, before or after the time frame indicated here, but the basic facts are correct.

When Quincy came out with the Flathead models after having much success modifying the factory deflector Mercs, the first pistons used were of a sand cast variety made by themselves. From the first they seemed to have problems with the sand cast variety of piston, and within a year or so of the introduction of the motor, and probably because Leavendusky Sr. in his home shop business was being approached by users/racers of the Flatheads to try to solve the piston problems being encountered, Stan Sr. made a permanent mold for the Flat head pistons and started having them cast where he was employed, ACE Pattern and Foundry, which was owned by another former boat racer, the father of Tom Berry who has also posted here on BRF with photo's and stories of racing in the late 60's and early 70's by Kansas City Speedboat Association members.

Stan Sr. worked for Tom's father as a pattern maker, saw the need for a better piston, and made a permanent mold so as to cast them. Stan Sr., along with Tom's father, also changed the formula of the aluminum being used in the manufacture of the Quincy pistons, and the combination of making them in a permanent mold and changing the type of aluminum used in the making of them, seemed to solve the problems that were being experienced by Quincy when making them themselves. Based on that relationship, with Stan Sr. making the pistons and furnishing them to Quincy, which solved the piston problem, the relationship continued until the early 1970's, or the time when the Quincy Flatheads ceased to be competitive with other motors being used in ALKY/PRO racing at the time.

As to the reason that the problems existed with the original Quincy piston, the specifics of that have been lost to time, and my experience with the Flatheads came after they were using his pistons, so I don't know whether it was a "sticking" or burning problem, or they were just coming apart, but both Butch and I remember being in Stan Sr's basement workshop and hearing him mention poor quality aluminum/not the right type for pistons, mentioned many times. The phrase "Japanese beer cans" was also used several times, which should not surprise anyone who knew Stan Sr., and was familiar with his unhappiness with things not made the correct way based on his very intense/correct way of trying to make or fabricate anything he was involved with.

In addition to the pistons furnished for Flatheads over most of the racing lifetime of the motor, he also made pistons for the various models of rotary valve Konigs, from a similar type permanent type mold. He also fabricated some of the first "stick" type tower housings, after the increased speeds of the Flatheads on Merc stocker type tower housings broke under the increased power/speed causing some accidents which resulted in injuries to drivers. Much work was also done on Speeditwins for the C-Service classes and he was also known for his rebuilding of Konig and other type racing lower units. He was a National Champion in what at the time was called C Racing Runabout, using a PR for power. Later on his son "Butch" followed in his Championship footsteps with a win in the same class at Ackworth, Georgia., with the class now known as 500 PRO Runabout.

Hopefully this will add some to the stories of those who made parts, worked on motors, etc., which allowed those, especially in the PRO and MOD categories to race when presented with equipment problems not solved with factory help.
Great chronological history Bill. If only Steve Litzell would chime in as well.

[Gene East]

Great chronological history Bill. If only Steve Litzell would chime in as well.

John; you are absolutely right, Bill gave a very accurate account of the piston problems we had.
We used 3 different foundries to make castings for the looper pistons, but sand casting a high performance piston is not an easy process. All 3 of our suppliers at times had porosity issues that lead to failure.

Die-cast and/or permanent mold castings are far denser than sand-cast. Porosity in the tops of sand-cast provided a starting point for piston burning

We tried welding the tops of the sand cast blanks, that eliminated the porosity and greatly reduced the burning problem, but skirt failures were still an issue.

Stan Sr. was making his own pistons for Butch's (Stan Jr.) engines and wasn't having piston problems.

I don't know who contacted who, but ultimately Stan Sr. became our primary source of piston blanks.

At first the blanks were received semi-finished from Stan. Later he began shipping raw castings as the exclusive supplier of piston blanks for Quincy Welding.

Once again Bill did a great job of "telling it like it was"; and with no intent to steal Bill's thunder, I want to tell a story about Stan Jr.

Anyone who ever visited "The Northwest Corner of 5th & State" as Quincy Welding was often called will attest this was a bad-*** neighborhood.
There were bars on nearly every corner for 2-3 blocks and the patrons of these establishments were not altar-boys by any stretch of the imagination.

Butch was in town having some engine work done and stayed overnight. The following morning he showed up at the shop with 2 black eyes and a rather unusual looking nose.
He explained he had won a considerable amount of money playing pool with someone named Lonnie in one of the neighborhood bars and when he left the bar Lonnie was waiting outside to get his money back.

I asked Butch if the guy was Lonnie R. and was told, "Yeah, that's the M. F."! When I told him Lonnie was one of the biggest hoods in Quincy his response, was "Now you tell me"!

Lonnie was involved in nearly every shady situation in town including prostitution. We sold him a boat and he was always getting drunk and tearing up his props. I got to know him fairly well from repairing props.
Often he would call and tell us he was sending one of the girls down with a prop for repairs. He always paid cash and he never wanted a receipt.

Years later I got the opportunity to tell Butch; Lonnie had recently died in prison.

His response was, "Good, I wish the S.O.B. had died years ago"!

All the bars are gone now and the old Q.W. building is 3 times the size it used to be and houses an HVAC business.

The little family grocery store where we often went for lunch is still in business and I went there not long ago.

I got a ham sandwich, a pint of milk, a candy bar, and got change from $3.00.

Those were the days!

[smittythewelder]

I'll give this thread a bump and see if anybody gets interested.

Gene (or anybody), my little bit of knowledge is all from what I saw in Reg. 10 some 40-50 years ago, but seems like I saw a hand throttle manufactured by Quincy. Did you guys have a line of boat hardware. Nearly everybody out here used Leonard Keller's stuff, but occasionally I'd see hardware from some other source. Handles and pulleys you'd expect from any maker of hardware for the pleasure boating industry, but racing hand throttles seemed like a pretty specialized item, yet if memory serves, I saw one from Atwood, and another from (approximately) Wilcox-Crittendon, who also made a little steering wheel plus hub for cable steering.

I wish I could say more about Keller, who was an old guy (my judgment of "old" has changed somewhat since then, oh dear) when I first visited his shop on Stone Way in north Seattle. I know he'd been a racer, post-war and maybe earlier, and ran in A Hydro against such local notables as Chuck Hickling, Val Hallum, and Lin Ivey. IIRC, his old boat is still in the area and in good shape. Seems like Mark Demeray worked for Keller for a time; maybe he'll chime in here.

Keller sold the business to ______ Williams (I'm blanking on his first name, terrible because I knew and liked the man!!), a high school shop teacher in Bremerton,WA, whose boys raced (let's see, the older boy was Tom (?), who last ran Super C, and his wife was Shirley, great gal; brother, I need a program to do a de-frag on my brain!!). If Gene Laes, who used to run BSH and AOH with me and still races in the two Antique runabout classes, and who was a student in ______ William's shop classes happens to see this, maybe he'll contribute.

Eventually, the Keller-Williams business was sold to Buzz Thorsen, machinist and ex-racer in Oregon. I knew Buzz a little from when he used to show up to race BOH with a gorgeous '56 Chevy Nomad wagon, car-topping his equally gorgeous McDonald hydro with matching paint job. At a race in Oregon in 1966, everybody in the pits came over to see his new engine, the first Harrison we had seen out here. Anyway, I understand that Buzz's son Alan gradually took over the hardware biz. Where it went from there, if anywhere, I don't know, but Alan shows up here, and I think Steve Greaves knows about this (in fact, he might be getting the Keller-Williams-Thorsen hardware made currently . . . .

(EDIT) Thought of another one. There was a maker of speedometers for pleasure boats, something like Air-Guide (??); I wonder if they had some of their meters calibrated for racing speeds, because I think I saw one or two in raceboats . . . .

(EDIT) DAVE!!!! DAVE Williams!!!!! (shakes head slowly, listens to his own shrunken brain sloshing around).

(More EDIT) The older Williams boy, who ran several stock classes, was Kyle, not Tom.)

[champ20B]

I'll give this thread a bump and see if anybody gets interested.

Gene (or anybody), my little bit of knowledge is all from what I saw in Reg. 10 some 40-50 years ago, but seems like I saw a hand throttle manufactured by Quincy. Did you guys have a line of boat hardware. Nearly everybody out here used Leonard Keller's stuff, but occasionally I'd see hardware from some other source. Handles and pulleys you'd expect from any maker of hardware for the pleasure boating industry, but racing hand throttles seemed like a pretty specialized item, yet if memory serves, I saw one from Atwood, and another from (approximately) Wilcox-Crittendon, who also made a little steering wheel plus hub for cable steering.

I wish I could say more about Keller, who was an old guy (my judgment of "old" has changed somewhat since then, oh dear) when I first visited his shop on Stone Way in north Seattle. I know he'd been a racer, post-war and maybe earlier, and ran in A Hydro against such local notables as Chuck Hickling, Val Hallum, and Lin Ivey. IIRC, his old boat is still in the area and in good shape. Seems like Mark Demeray worked for Keller for a time; maybe he'll chime in here.

Keller sold the business to ______ Williams (I'm blanking on his first name, terrible because I knew and liked the man!!), a high school shop teacher in Bremerton,WA, whose boys raced (let's see, the older boy was Tom (?), who last ran Super C, and his wife was Shirley, great gal; brother, I need a program to do a de-frag on my brain!!). If Gene Laes, who used to run BSH and AOH with me and still races in the two Antique runabout classes, and who was a student in ______ William's shop classes happens to see this, maybe he'll contribute.

Eventually, the Keller-Williams business was sold to Buzz Thorsen, machinist and ex-racer in Oregon. I knew Buzz a little from when he used to show up to race BOH with a gorgeous '56 Chevy Nomad wagon, car-topping his equally gorgeous McDonald hydro with matching paint job. At a race in Oregon in 1966, everybody in the pits came over to see his new engine, the first Harrison we had seen out here. Anyway, I understand that Buzz's son Alan gradually took over the hardware biz. Where it went from there, if anywhere, I don't know, but Alan shows up here, and I think Steve Greaves knows about this (in fact, he might be getting the Keller-Williams-Thorsen hardware made currently . . . .

(EDIT) Thought of another one. There was a maker of speedometers for pleasure boats, something like Air-Guide (??); I wonder if they had some of their meters calibrated for racing speeds, because I think I saw one or two in raceboats . . . .

(EDIT) DAVE!!!! DAVE Williams!!!!! (shakes head slowly, listens to his own shrunken brain sloshing around).

Speaking of throttles, Quincy did have a pretty nice model called a "Visuematic" I think. It was made so that you could see the workings in it, I suppose. As for Wilcox Critteden, they made a heavy duty throttle. In fact, that is what my B-Mod runabout has! I restored my W/C throttle and finished it in Champion metal-flake blue to match my rig. W/C has been around since the early 1800s as a tool manufacturer. They started by making scrapers and later made high end nautical equipment and hardware for sailing ships in the late 1800s. The W/C racing throttle is a very collectible piece made by a historical manufacturer.

[Steve Litzell]

Great chronological history Bill. If only Steve Litzell would chime in as well.

Not much I can add as far as Quincy pistons go. Mahle the maker of pistons for Konig goes to the beginning of Konig in 1928. Konig did make some of their own but blanks were mostly bought from Mahle. After the war, German companies depended on each other to rebuild their country. During these very difficult times friendships and agreements were made between Deiter and his father with many companies for their motor works that lasted until Dieters death. Like many manufactures, certain parts are made elsewhere and assembled in the host factory. Steve

[smittythewelder]

Long ago, Bob Gilliam was showing me a dusty pile of OMC stuff he had raced as a young guy in Payette, Idaho, and among the goodies was a "Starns" or "Starnes" racing lower unit. Looked like a pretty nice piece. Anybody know about the maker?

Among the other show-and-tells at Gilliam's was a 4-60 powerhead . . . with a Winfield carburetor!! That really caught my eye, because Winfield had been a huge name in hot-rodding and auto racing from at least the Thirties, and that carb probably was a collectable even in 1968 . . . I should have tried to buy it.

(EDIT) Ed Winfield was a 2011 inductee in the Motorsports Hall of Fame. Good write-up on a phenomenally talented man who lived a long life in motorsports. Google him, or go to www.mshf.com

[smittythewelder]

I'm gonna give this thread a bump. Somebody from Wiseco posted over on Hydroracer to say that the company is looking to acquire an early Fifties BU to become a company display boat, something contemporaneous with Clyde Wiseman's racing days. They are also looking for anybody who remembers Wiseman, maybe has some stories.

http://hydroracer.net/forums/forum/main/so-mod-pro-buy-sell/444920-wiseco-75th-anniversary-looking-for-50-s-bsu-hull

[DeanFHobart]

I'll give this thread a bump and see if anybody gets interested.

Keller sold the business to ______ Williams (I'm blanking on his first name, terrible because I knew and liked the man!!), a high school shop teacher in Bremerton,WA, whose boys raced (let's see, the older boy was Tom (?), who last ran Super

(EDIT) DAVE!!!! DAVE Williams!!!!! (shakes head slowly, listens to his own shrunken brain sloshing around).

Yes, you are right............. Dave Williams. However the oldest son is Kyle Williams, who ran BSH, DSH and Super C Hydro. Middle son is Paul who ran ASH and ASR. Youngest son Tom who ran JSH and JSR, but later ran ASR, ASH, and 25SSR.