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August 2005

Earl Gallaher: Keeping the Cummins Heritage

Earl Gallaher

Around the commercial marine community of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, Earl Gallaher is a legend. If your reliable old Cummins become unreliable and the manuals were lost 20, 30 or 40 years ago—call Earl.

And many do and most times he can solve their problem and that in spite of the fact that he retired years ago. This past July, Earl completed another service to Cummins and the marine community when he donated a fully restored Cummins Diesel HS 600 M back to the company. The engine’s ratings are 225 HP at 1800 RPM or 275 HP at 2100 RPM. The engine HS 600 M was built from the early 40’s to the early 60’s.

This particular engine was originally sold in 1944 to Jakob Hansen to be installed as the third engine in his purse seine boat Supreme. Hansen had built the boat himself in the family shipyard Hansen Brother Boat Builders in Seattle over the winter of 1921-22. The original engine in the boat was a Frisco Standard followed briefly by a Chrysler gas engine. The boat’s first diesel was supplied by Cummins Diesel Sales of Washington, then located on First Avenue nears Sears Roebuck. At the time the sale was made, Cummins Diesel was owned by Dave Buttles, the parts manager was Chase Dealey, the service manager was Paul Phillips and Earl believes that the actual sale was made by salesman, Harold Dag.

When Hansen died, the Supreme was sold to Felix Enquist and Earl Gallaher began caring for it in the mid 1950s. Enquist and the boat continued to fish southeast Alaska until his death when his son Paul fished the boat with the reliable old engine until he repowered with a Cummins 855 about 1995. After a half century the engine was still in running condition but its future was uncertain until a conversation at Fish Expo. The conversation with Earl raised the idea of overhauling it and donating it to Cummins to preserve this important piece as a representative of the engines that propelled so many purse seiners and halibut schooners in the Alaskan fishery through the latter half of the twentieth century.

Earl took the engine to his shop in July 2003. He stripped it down, sand blasted the castings to remove rust, applied anti rust and then restored all to original Cummins color and specifications. With the help of a neighbor Charlie Johnson e worked on the engine over the summers of 2003 and 2004 and steadily all through the spring of 2005. All told the two friends spent hundreds of loving hours to clean, refurbish and restore the engine. Earl says that the current state of the engine is 95% original, with only one cylinder head having to be replaced. He made an instrument panel for the gauges and he made new fuel lines, plus he refurbished parts of the fuel pump, water pump and lube oil pump because pieces were no longer available.

At a ceremony in Renton Washington on July 19, 2005, in the presence of the senior marine sales managers from throughout American, Earl Gallaher presented the engine back to the company. Accepting the engine on behalf of Cummins Marine, Geoff Conrad head of the Marine Division of Cummins worldwide, expressed appreciation and commented on Earl’s legendary reputation among Cummins marine customers and staff.

(This article was prepared with the research aid of Earl Gallaher’s daughter Adele Drummond.)

575-551
550-526, 525-501, 500-476, 475-451, 450-426, 425-401, 400-376
375-351, 350-326, 325-301, 300-276, 275-251, 250-226, 225-201
200-176, 175-151, 150-126, 125-101, 100-76, 75-51, 50-26, 25-0