The upshot was that Harrison had two batteries made to meet Delco needs. One was a twelve-cell weighing sixty-five pounds. When he showed it to Kettering he was told that it was too big. Harrison went back to Philadelphia and asked for lighter ones. By this time his employers were fed up with his enthusiasm for the self-starter and decided to wash their hands of the whole business. Then Harrison played his trump card. He told the head of his concern that if he did not fill the Delco order he would go over to its strongest competitor. This threat carried the day. With his own hands Harrison perfected a light battery that met Delco needs. Before long Harrison was devoting part of his time to Delco interests. Eventually he became a valued part of the organization.
The battery problem was now solved but another difficulty arose. The new and lighter batteries had to be installed and this required time. Meanwhile time was slipping. Leland telegraphed that he was going to Bermuda on a vacation. If the electric self-starter was to go on the 1912 Cadillac, he must test it himself before he sailed. Only three more days remained before the deadline.
To C. F. Kettering the automobile represented a constant challenge and a lifetime field of endeavor.
To prove the sturdy qualities of the self-starter, races were run in which the starter itself was the only motive power allowed.
When the completed self-starter seemed ready to be shipped to Detroit something went wrong. For two days and nights Kettering and the “Barn Gang” labored to find the source of the trouble. If the starter did not reach Detroit in forty-eight hours, all was lost. Still the trouble persisted. Finally, late in the afternoon, Kettering sent an S.O.S. to Chryst who was still at the NCR. When he arrived at the barn all he could see of human life was legs protruding from under Kettering’s car which was now the guinea pig. The gang was completely exhausted after the long ordeal of heat, toil, and trouble. “You fellows rest awhile,” said Chryst, “I will try to find out what is wrong.” Wearily Kettering and Anderson hauled themselves out from under the car and before Chryst could say another word fell fast asleep.
Chryst took out the starter mechanism and found that two wires were wrongly connected. In their utter exhaustion Kettering and Anderson had not discovered it. Chryst fixed the wires in short order. The self-starter, now complete, went to Leland by express that night. Once on the 1912 Cadillac, every expectation was realized.
The experimental shop in the barn—the setting of so many headaches—now gave way to a factory. Quarters were rented on the second floor of the Beaver Power Building at the corner of Fourth and St. Clair Streets. Delco was now a full-fledged and going concern. The advent of the self-starter however required money and machinery. Deeds and Kettering had little of either. With implicit faith in the enterprise, they mortgaged their homes and borrowed money on their life insurance to raise the wherewithal for equipment. In the same year that the self-starter went on the Cadillac, Delco engaged the entire new four-story Beaver Power Building then nearing completion. When Deeds signed the lease, Fred Beaver, owner of the building, said to him:
“You boys will never fill this building making self-starters.” To this Deeds replied: “Just watch us grow.” And grow they did. The second Delco order to O. Lee Harrison was for 15,000 storage batteries, the largest placed up to that time. An enterprise that began in a barn with scant assets save the faith, energy, and inventive genius of the founders, had created an industry whose name carried weight wherever automobiles were made.