1937 engine revived

The picture shows the second largest engine in Malta, a 1937 Black Stone under the name of Brush and it was coupled with a generator that runs electric pumps into the water table about 80 feet underground.

The engine was stopped in the early Seventies, and our voluntary foundation Fondazzjoni Wirt Industrijali has worked on it these past 18 months to make it work again. It was hard work but five weeks ago it worked, after five weekends' attempts at starting it.

This engine is very similar to a Volkswagon Beetle engine but in a large scale (1:170 scale). It has a witdh of 16 ft 6 inches, a 6 ft 4 inch flywheel diameter and it is a four-piston boxer engine, air start on two pistons and runs at about 400 rpm full speed.

This photo was taken while it was running for the first time after about 30 years; now after all that hard work it's time for the paint work. This engine is kept in a Water Services Corporation pumping station.

I thank all members of FWI and the people involved who worked on this engine, especially Spiru Spiteri, John Hili, Godwin Hampton and Clive Sammut, Azzopardi Fisheries for providing the necessary tools and high pressure diving compressors, and all workers of WSC for taking care of this historical machinery for a long time, especially engineer Robert Schembri and Vince Camilleri.