Restoring a National Oil Well Pump Jack with a Hit-and-Miss Engine

I restored this old National Oil Well Pumping Unit and added a United 2 HP throttle-governed (generically called a hit-and-miss) engine.
Obtained from an old oil field near Petrolia, Texas, this small pumping unit was the perfect size for an animated piece of yard art! It was very worn and required making new bearings and lots of cleaning.
Check my KZbin page for many other videos like this:
/ @radiotexas

[@donaldappelhof2059]

I need one of those! I don’t know why but I need one!

[@808TheDuck]

Very interesting! I grew up in PA. We had lots of coal and heavy equipment. I never thought about the oil fields. This video is so cool!

[@om617yota7]

That's fantastic, thank you for bringing us along. Would love to have one of those in my front yard.

[@CuriousEarthMan]

Very inspiring! Thank you!

[@taylorhutchings4612]

I used to show up to location early in the morning to tear down long term shut in pumping units, load them onto trucks, and then install them onto newly drilled wells. I'm talking about pump jacks that ran for 20+ years with minimal maintenance and have the client expecting them to perform like a newly purchased unit on the new wells. My buddy used to say the only tools he needed to get a pump jack running were a sledge hammer, a 36 inch crescent wrench, and a cutting torch. Countless times we ended up in the oil company's bone yard picking bearings or weights like it was a pick-and-pull. Building cribs, filling them with sand, packing them down, using levels to ensure the cement pad sat perfectly flat, etc. The most frustrating part was after you finally got the old pumping unit running working on the new well, you had to sit and wait for fluid to finally hit surface before you could balance the counterweights. These were 2500lb+ weights you needed a knuckle picker to adjust and hope you hit the right balance before you could finally say it was time to go home. Setting pump jacks on oil producing wells is back breaking work.

[@markjurkovich7814]

That is an awesome piece of yard art! Well done! 👍

[@whitesapphire5865]

I don't know why, but KZbin keeps recommending all these oil well videos, and frankly, I'm hooked! I love it, and love to see these machines running, and now to see a tiny little pump being restored, has inspired me to seek out some materials and build a working imitation, just to install it along the side of the driveway to our farmyard. It sounds crazy, I know, but just idea of something mechanical, and animated, really appeals to me.

[@knobsdialsandbuttons]

Great video ! 👍

[@1978garfield]

Very cool.

[@jeremylastname873]

“Iron mosquitoes suck the blood from the ground..” - Guy Forsyth

[@2007bambino]

I use to deer hunt in Michigan in the early 70’s and I would hear the old hit and miss motors running, it sounded like a heart beating slowly.

[@joeystrains.9316]

Came out great! Impressive restoration.

[@pnwRC.]

3:58

[@PharaohDeathMask]

Thank you for the fabulous video. It was enjoyable to watch.

[@mariaviklund4546]

Best 73's from Sweden =)

[@steveparker8723]

Looks great! Fun restoration job.

[@bitrage.]

Ill tell you what, for only having 1k subscriber's your video/editing/composition quality is better then 75% of channels with 100k subscribers... And for lawn decor you rebuilt that thing better then it was new!! Your passion shine's through in the quality of all you do!!!👍👍👍

[@sosuzguy]

Great informative video and your restored unit is great. I have several I tinker with. I still need to get some Larkin or casing heads set like yours. 👍

[@coltontucker6705]

I like oil Wells too

[@anellcrews7974]

very good guy. i'm envious