THE GIANT SWISS WATCH

1944 KAHLENBERG B-5

- JIM ALLEN

The Coolspring Power Museum’s Kahlenberg B-5 is a five-cylinder inline with a 10 x 10.5-inch bore and stroke, displacing 4,123 cubic inches and making 150 hp at 340 rpm. Calculated torque at peak power would be 2317 lbs-ft. The engine starts with air and is a directly reversible engine. The engine weighs approximately 8-tons. Included with the engine were two identical bronze water pumps (no longer installed), one used as a bilge pump and the other as a cooling water circulating pump. Should one fail, they could be switched. An air compressor was also built onto the engine and an air tank was supplied for starting air.... and to operate your Kahlenberg air horns!

The name Kahlenberg may inspire only quizzical looks from a modern diesel pickup enthusiast. If you operated boats on the Great Lakes from about 1900 into the 1980s, you knew them as engines sometimes compared to Swiss watches that every fisherman and tug operator could afford to run.

EARLY DAYS

Brothers William and Otto Kahlenberg opened a machine shop in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, on Lake Michigan just north of Manitowoc. Seeing a future need going largely unfulfilled, Kahlenberg Brothers Company soon turned to building two-stroke gasoline engines for small boats on the lakes. Their first went into a fishing boat in 1897 and that set a course for the business. They were a pioneer company in offering affordable small to medium-sized marine engines for boats on the Great Lakes and soon gained a high reputation. One of their notable engine features was direct-reversing with no muss or fuss and it played well with the fisherman on the lakes, as well as yachtsmen and commercial boat operators of all types.