Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

Check your heater for continuity. If it checks out, you should have nothing to worry about. Just be careful with it. 🙂

Working on the sight glass, you may find that the bottom screw is seized, or just rotted away to the point that it just breaks off. I’ve been down that road before. It’s a very careful extraction process at that point.

I’ll help you any way I can. I’ve repaired more than 100 Jensen engines over the last 25 years or so, but if you do decide that it’s too much of a challenge for you, I’d certainly be willing to take it on. 😁

    Thanks so much Mike for your suggestions and offer to help. The video is just great, really a remarkable education on the model 35, and I can’t imagine that anyone could do any better (especially given the quantity of reference material on display!).

    I am increasingly inclined to believe that I don’t want to try to take on any major restoration effort on this engine. I have so far done nothing more than take it apart as shown, which involved only removing the firebox from the base and sliding the heating element out. So, easy enough to just put it back as it was, thus leaving it entirely “as found”.

     I have been seeking an early Jensen to restore, but would prefer something like a larger model, specifically one of the horseshoe magnet generator models (with the lamp) on a wood base from the late 1940s-50s. If I could find one in rough but mostly complete condition. I saw the perfect one on e-bay at a great price just a few weeks ago, but passed it up, and soon regretted that I did. Anyway, I would be interested in some even trade of this engine, for something like that, for which spare parts are readily available (clearly, the heating elements for this 35 are not!).

    For now, I will just put this one back together. I am waiting to hear from the gentleman who sold it to me, because he suspects that he has at least one more engine that also belonged to his grandfather, and is going to look for it, and offer it to me if he can find it. Who knows what it might be, but naturally I will be waiting in suspense to find out!