Here's the story:

My father-in-law bought some containers at auction a couple weeks ago. He deals in scrap and used equipment and does this stuff all the time. He had a friend go pick up the container and haul it to the junk yard. He never saw it, and was expecting a check for the scrap value of the steel container from his friend. He gets a call from his friend that when they ripped off the top of the container with the steel shears at the junkyard, they revealed a jet engine inside the container. It was damaged by the shears and was junked. The good thing is that he bought two of the containers. He had the other one taken to his lot and there it sits.

The engine is a Pratt and Whitney J57
Pratt & Whitney: About Us - Classic Engines - J57 (JT3)

This thing was put away in the container with some care by the military. All the open ports were capped off with custom covers, hoses were capped and there were about 100 large desiccant bags in the bottom of the container. The container is sealed with a 1/2" O-ring, so the engine was well protected from the elements.

There were no maintenance records with it.

I called Pratt and Whitney and they were very helpful. They told me that there are a couple of non-aviation related uses for this engine. One was that they were used to heat orange groves down in Florida. I haven't been able to find anything on this in my google searches. The other thing they used them for was for snowblowers on the Alaska Railroad. I found some pics of it here:
BR21 Jet Snow Blower

I'd like to see that thing at work!

I called the Alaska Railroad and got transferred to one of their maintenance departments, but haven't got a call back yet.

I put it on craigslist with pics too:
Pratt & Whitney J57 Jet engine for sale

Anyone have any ideas on what do do with this thing to make some money besides strapping it to a pickup truck and winning a darwin award?

 

give ya a $100 for it!

 

J-57s with no afterburner were used on B-52s (A through G model) and KC-135s. With the burner, F-100s, and I think F-8s. It later formed the core of the JT-3D family, the first turbofnas (early 707s).

Based on the heavies alone, there were at least 2800 KC-135 J-57s, and 4000 B-52 J-57s.

The shipping containers, which I am pretty sure are called cans, are custom cases designed to get spare engines to and from a war zone with no damage. It's a shame you lost the can and the engine.

I don't think they command a real large price, given the number built. It is possible some drag racers (Jet-Truck variety) or jet-boat guy might want one (they tend to use smaller engines, though).

I'd try Trade-a-Plane and see what kind of price info you can get.

 

You're getting close. He paid $550 for it I think.

 

Thanks Phlyer. I'll search for some jet vehicle forums and see what I can come up with.

 

I worked on the 57 when I was stationed at Plattsburgh AFB, NY. Awesome engine and runs like a bat out of hell. When it breaks, it breaks hard. Water injection system failure is a total teardown and rebuild from the diffuser case back.

The engine has a couple borescope ports. I would also use the igniter plug ports and check the combustion chamber, combustion cans. If you have a flex scope you could run it thru the front of the core and do a blade inspection. Doesn't take much to FOD a 57 tho.

It was a really fun engine to work on. We could tear it completely down and replace everything, both N1 and N2 compressors, combustion chamber/cans, T-wheels (turbine). Only thing we couldn't do was zero time the engine. Only depot could do that.

You could mount it on a truck and use it as a wind generator. I know that some companies also use jet engines to generate electrical power. I think the jet boats us helicopter turbine engines.

 

You could try to sell it to an A&P school.

 

That would probably be your best shot with making money from it. The 57 is a great "basic" jet engine to learn.
You could also try to sell the damaged engine as "spare parts".

 

That's a great idea. I hadn't thought of that. I'll make some calls.

The damaged engine was totally torn to pieces by the meatheads at the junkyard. There was nothing salvageable after they tore it apart. I guess they can go home and say, "Guess what I tore apart today at work?"

 

How badly damaged is the bad one? You might take it apart and make a coffee table out of the turbines. Or you could sell it to these guys and let them do the same: Motoart | Own a piece of aviation history

Here is one of their burner can coffee tables: F-4 Phantom Table | Motoart

LOTS of rouge and elbow grease involved in those things!