Someone help me out. I'm not mechanically savvy, but everyone I show this to gets giddy.

Do I have something of worth here?

Yes

Hook a blender up to it.....

Looks like someone set it up to run a pump or an electric generator

Looks a lot like a couple of irrigation "motors" my dad has at the farm. Put that bad boy into action and you can pump 750 gallons per minute without much strain.

The red plate with the instruments looks identical (to my memory). Dad's did not have the stacks on it. it was more like this.

100% correct. It was an emergency use motor for a municipal well. We removed it on a project, and now don't know what to do with it.

It's worth a couple thousand if it runs and has good oil pressure. I just bought a 496 used.

We always called the red plate a Murphy switch. Low oil pressure or if the water temperature gets too hot and the engine shuts off. Common on stationary engines

Worth maybe $1000 as an irrigation engine. It's not going to have the compression and cam of a performance 454.

And yes, a company called Murphy made the gauges and switch panel that shuts an engine down with low oil pressure or high temperature

We always ran open headers unless it was close to a house.

We ran 413 Chryslers on the big wells, 292 Chevys (6 cylinder) on the smaller

The heads on a propane/natural gas industrial engine will be different than one in a vehicle that is running on unleaded. That one has a radiator, so it will be a little more versatile in application. The v8 Irrigation motors that I have worked with are all cooled by a coil in the pipe coming out of the well. An irrigated farmer might be interested in that unit as a backup if he has one go down. It can be very time sensitive if you have a motor go down and you need to be pumping water.

I had just swapped in a 454 for a 460 that had blown up on an irrigated circle the day I met my wife, Saturday 7/7/07.

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The heads on a propane/natural gas industrial engine will be different than one in a vehicle that is running on unleaded

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I don't know if that's still true. In the 70s and earlier, our natural gas engines all had hardened valve seats, and cars did not. Cars depended on the lead in gas to help keep the valves lubed and alive. We ran on natural gas, so no lead.

Now that gasoline doesn't have lead, I assume that all valves have hardened seats.

The valve seats and also the valves are different is what the guys who build irrigation motors around here tell me.

I always just heard the valve seats. But, it's been 40 years since I dealt with irrigation engines.

The 413 Chrysler industrial engines would last for freaking ever. I think the blocks may have been the same ones used for 426 hemis.

But I do recall that the valves were hollow and filled with sodium, I think to keep the exhaust valves cool. On the rare occasion you'd have to overhaul one, those valves were very expensive. Someone figured out that valves from some John Deere tractor were identical, and folks started swapping those in

yes, something to do with heat on the valves. I have never heard that about the john deere valves, but most of the gas motors around here are 454s and 460s.

We had one in our 1-ton many, many years ago.

I think it got 5 mpg. Or was it 5 gpm?

Changing the oil on an LP engine is a trip - oil is as clean and bright coming out of the engine as it is pouring it out of the jug.

Somewhere I have a photograph of a dual engine setup on an irrigation pump.

A pair of Chrysler 316s connected crank-to-crank.

I've seen those in the northeastern panhandle where they had abundant water that was really deep

Except they were 413s

Some big Wakeshau engines in that area, too

Don Hardy sells twin 454 setups.

Ribeye-Rare said:

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We had one in our 1-ton many, many years ago.

I think it got 5 mpg. Or was it 5 gpm?

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Had to be 5gpm. 454 couldn't get 5mpg going downhill, with the wind, and everybody pushing.

Centerpole90 said:

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Don Hardy sells twin 454 setups.

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I remember when Don Hardy built drag racers

I am old

CanyonAg77 said:

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Worth maybe $1000 as an irrigation engine. It's not going to have the compression and cam of a performance 454.

And yes, a company called Murphy made the gauges and switch panel that shuts an engine down with low oil pressure or high temperature

We always ran open headers unless it was close to a house.

We ran 413 Chryslers on the big wells, 292 Chevys (6 cylinder) on the smaller

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When I was on wheat harvest crew up in that part of the world, one of the neater things to see at night was one of those motors running and seeing the orange glow from the exhaust pipes.