Comments[114]:

Glad you are doing this.

Comments[113]:

I have the original prototype that was made by Alvaro Silas Krotz in 1906. I have restored it to running condition and have driven it on several tours. The # stamped on the frame is: AK-01. Several of the parts also have AK and a # stamped on them. This is the prototype submitted to Sears to prove the concept of the motorized buggy. It was un finished and was set up to prove the concept and was incomplete in many aspects. An example was the friction wheel used only wood as a friction material. The frame shows having been modified for diferent diameter friction drive wheels. The friction drive wheel had no variable adjustment for the driving speed and was manually set by locking collets. The Jackshaft had only the rudimentary setup for the diferential speeds on the chain drive. Also the shift lever assembly was set up to move the rear bellcrank but had no connection to the friction drive wheel to vary the speed, only the concept was there. I had to remove the friction drive wheel and design a replacement wheel based on the Sears cars thet were running. I had to complete the linkage from the bellcrank to the jackshaft friction drive wheel. I also had to design a friction mechanism which would allow the slippage for the diferent drive speeds of the rear wheels in a turn. The timing advance mechanism was just being completed and as recieved it was not functional and I had to design a timing advance system to work with the enging which was in the buggy at the time. The old mechanism was removed and kept for reference. The enging which was in the buggy was a Panherd enging and had not been run. It had yhe original hone marks in the cylenders and the spark plugs were original Bosch fron Germany and I had to contact Bosch in Germany to get a replacement as the reference books here did not go back past 1906 and had no cross reference to areplacement plug. I now have replacement plugs and am using a cross reference plug in leu of the expensive plugs and they wor

Comments[112]:

I enjoyed your web sight and I will be back when I get some time to do more looking.

Comments[111]:

If you would like some photos of my 1909 MB let me know

Comments[110]:

you do a great job with this. Franklin, Holsman, Stanley, etc all could use better home pages, if they have any at all, just thought I'd mention it!!

Comments[109]:

These are my comments. This is the final test of the Guestbook.

Comments[1]:

This is the start of the new guestbook. Due to spammers invading the last one, I have implemented this guestbook as a way to get around their foolishness. I win.

John M. Daly