ion was poor, partly owing to the
hot-tube arrangement, and partly to the excessive distance between the
engine and the carburetor. Frank wrote his brother Charles on February
6[17] that in his opinion the mixing chamber was so far from the engine
that the gasoline could not be drawn into the cylinder as liquid, and it
was too cold to vaporize and go in as gas. Thus he had difficulty in
getting the engine started. When it did start the explosions were
unmuffled. Less important to him than these defects, however, was the
awkward and unsightly wooden engine mount.

Description of the Automobile

Sometime in the early part of March, Frank convinced Markham that he
could construct a new and practical engine, using only previously tried
mechanical principles.[18] Drawing up new plans for this engine, he took
them to Charles Marshall who began work on the patterns for the new
engine castings. After the patterns had been delivered to the foundry,
Frank left Springfield for a short vacation in Groton, Connecticut,
where he visited with his fiancee. On May 17, 1893, several weeks after
his return to Springfield, they were married.

The engine castings were undoubtedly received from the foundry prior to
Frank Duryea's marriage, and the work of machining and assembling the
parts went on through the spring and summer. This engine, still on the
carriage in the Museum of History and Technology, is cased with a water
jacket, and has bases on top to support the front and rear bearings of
the starting crankshaft, and a base with port on the upper right side
where the exhaust-valve housing was to be bolted. On the underside are
two flanges, forming a base for seating the engine on the axle. A
separate combustion chamber is cast and bolted to the head. Inside this
chamber are located the igniter parts of Frank's electric ignition
system. The fixed part, an insulated electrode, is screwed into the
right side of the chamber and is connected with the ignition switch
outside, to which one of the ignition wires is attached. A breaker arm
inside is pinned to a small shaft extending through the top of the
chamber. Around the breaker-arm shaft is a small coil spring (originally
a spiral spring, according to the letter of Charles Duryea shown in fig.
17), anchored below to a thin brass finger extending toward the right
side of the car, and above to a nut screwed tightly onto the shaft. This
nut is also the terminal for the other ignition