MTFCA Forum

Erik Barrett

Thanks everyone. Dad was in L.A. when the MTFCA was started. He was a member of the International club and retained that membership but embraced the new club and its different attitude centered on touring and fellowship rather than showing brass era cars. He knew all the founding members. Not only d...

Erik Barrett

Thank you everyone for your kind words. We all miss dad and are thankful for the times we had with him.

Erik Barrett

Yesterday my mentor, teacher, role model, best friend, and father passed away at 85 years old. He taught me how to be a man, to love others as myself, how to work on the old machinery for which we shared a passion, and about God’s grace so abundant in our lives. He taught me how to drive a model T a...

Erik Barrett

Les, I would like to have one for my TA14. Count me in.

Erik Barrett

I am going to agree with my friend yellow T racer on this one. The specification he gave is about twice the positive caster Ford called for on the model T. We have found this is perfect for light cars and especially for fast cars. And he’s right, model T’s don’t need laser alignment. A carpenter’s s...

Erik Barrett

I had the privilege of working on some parts of this historic car. I would live to see it there and meet the man who has made it happen. It’s the oldest four cylinder Ford running.

Erik Barrett

The crank broke. It was a Sure Mike vintage counter weighted unit. After the block was repaired I put in a Scat crank.

Erik Barrett

Use a late crankshaft. Preferably one marked EE. The early ones are not nearly as good. If you have a 1911 block you want the best crank you can afford. I just repaired a 1911 engine the broke the crank and ripped the rear main web out of the block. Had to have lock n stitch put it back together. Ex...

Erik Barrett

We will be there. Have not missed one in 43 years. Every year I threaten to make it the last one. Rumble Seat Garage in GG 59-64. Will have T stuff.

Erik Barrett

My original Rajo four valve had separate shafts which damaged the head. It’s a bad design. I went to a single stainless shaft with great results.

Erik Barrett

We just worked on an engine similar to this one. It took a whole bunch of work to stuff a model B crankshaft into a T. You have to turn both the rod and main journals down to model A size or it won’t fit. There have been some T’s built with model B rods but they are OHC jobs with no camshaft in the ...

Erik Barrett

Jem, Merry Christmas from across the pond and then some. Hoping your new year is not dry but not rainy either.

Erik Barrett

Les, we built an engine with one of these and have had no priming problems. We primed the pump and lines with heavy weight oil when we built it and have not touched it since. We are careful to watch for pressure on starting.

Erik Barrett

A great loss to the T community and to speedster people in particular. I have met Howard many times and had the privilege of talking with him and Fast Frank Harris weeks ago when they they came to see us race Chris Egsgaard’s blue Long Beach champ in Murietta. They had not seen it race in 45 years w...

Erik Barrett

I do these all the time. I braze them up and rebore them. Most of the time the brass is all gone when they are bored out due to shrinkage as they cool. Dozens of repaired ones out in the road.

Erik Barrett

Closed cab TT truck.

Erik Barrett

If you think he is pale you should have seen him after the first time I turned him loose with the Wild Cherry II. He was ashen, absolutely terrified.

Erik Barrett

Admin Jeff did a fabulous job wiring the car. You can tell he is used to working with high end cars. Very meticulous. The car had a quarter mile test drive today and went into the trailer for the races. Robert came back kind of pale so I think it is running well. We are southbound at this time on I-...

Erik Barrett

Frontenac crankcase adapter to model A transmission with another adapter to 39 Ford V8 transmission.

Erik Barrett

The car is ready to go and will race for the first time since Long Beach on Saturday at Santa Margarita. This is not a hill climb, it is vintage drag racing, so we will have a chance to spank some flathead V8’s too.

Erik Barrett

Remove the four bolt cover behind the worm gear. Take the big nut off and remove the thrust bearing and worm gear roller bearing. Look in with a pen light and count the teeth on the worm gear. Four teeth, low speed. Six teeth, high speed.

Erik Barrett

Rumble Seat Garage is coming.

Erik Barrett

Got it running last night. Sounds very potent. Won’t idle, need to work on the Winfield D model carb. We hope to race it on Saturday at RPM nationals in Santa Margarita.

Erik Barrett

That’s Egsgaard’s Wild Cherry. It turned the whole hill climb thing upside down and was the beginning of what the Long Beach event was famous for. It is the car we modeled the Wild Cherry II racer after.

Erik Barrett

Chris Egsgaard’s 1973 Long Beach champ is coming back together.

Erik Barrett

I am glad to have been involved with getting this model T back on the road. That’s what we are about at Rumble Seat Garage. Jeff is a great T hobbyist and so much more. He gave up racing insanely fast Porsche race cars for this and I can say he has embraced our love of these cars to the fullest.

Erik Barrett

3:1 gears are not a good proposition for a full body model T. Definitely not for a coupelet. These are for lightweight speedsters or runabouts at most. If you have an overhead on your car you don’t need them either. These engines work at higher rpm ranges so stock gears will give you all the speed y...

Erik Barrett

The price quoted seems awfully expensive until you look a a set of these gears. Reproducing them must have been absurdly expensive. I can’t imagine them being available but hats off to the people making it happen.

Erik Barrett

I have one of the old manufacture New Day timers on my dump truck. The one that says “No oiling”. I go for years at a time without touching it. I have a modern seal on the camshaft so that helps keep it clean.

Erik Barrett

After getting behind the wheel of a model T and getting comfortable with it, you will be ready to give up on the Shelby thing, maybe even throw rocks at it. The T is the most fun for the buck you can have with an old car. People drive them now for the same reason they did when they were new. They ar...

Erik Barrett

We brought a couple of model T’s to our Auburn car show. There were a lot of people walking right by killer street rods and customs to look at these cars.

Erik Barrett

Get a set of .030 pistons and have a competent machine shop bore and hone it. These blocks can go .060” and beyond. If you are worried about the longevity of a block that is .010” oversized at 90 years old you must be expecting to live to be 400.

Erik Barrett

I have repaired two engines damaged when these sight glasses broke on gravel roads.

Erik Barrett

Erik Barrett

There is no reason to worry about double oversized pins or welding up a mangled flywheel. I have stacks of flywheels that don’t need heroic measures to save them. New pins are all they need. Anyone who needs one can pick it up here at no cost whatsoever. Just come and get it. All I ask is be ready t...

Erik Barrett

I have some of those bearing scrapers. They precede the nazi era.

Erik Barrett

Jeff, this is not your first trip down this road. What’s up with that? What are the symptoms and conditions extant at the time of the failure?

Erik Barrett

In the 1950’s my father bought a TT truck with a wooden cab. It had solid rubber tires on the back. They called it the Teddy truck because Teddy Roosevelt was a rough rider. At some point dad scored some 23” pneumatic TT wheels and tires. He backed the truck into the garage at his grandma’s house an...

Erik Barrett

Just leave it a little on the loose side so it is still down there and functional in case something goes wrong with the RM brakes.

Erik Barrett

The TT part is different. It should have a TT part number on it. The difference is the angle between the frame and the column.

Erik Barrett

Herm, thanks for the input. I will stick with grade 2. My book on rebuilding model A’s claims that Ford went to a cheaper lead base babbit because they thought the more robust, larger crankshaft did not require the more expensive grade. Maybe that is why the Ford name is on some lower grade babbit i...

Erik Barrett

The block is clamped down through the cylinder bores. The rags are there to protect the deck surface from scratching. The mill drives the bar with a flexible coupling so perfect alignment is not required, but I get it close. This block has been opened up to use babbit on the upper main bearings. Ori...

Erik Barrett

Herm, please elaborate. I’d like to learn more.

Erik Barrett

I buy government grade #2 from United Metals. They publish their formulae online and it is what Ford used for model T’s.

Erik Barrett

Well done! The best is yet to come, you have many good times to look forward to. Your model T will often require your attention but will pay it back many times over. Any time you have trouble there is help here.

Erik Barrett

Yes it is an early one. Number is just over 5000. I know the owner as as Micheal.

Erik Barrett

One of today’s projects. Main bearings on a 1909 block.

Erik Barrett

Still need to have the ball cap fourth main.

Erik Barrett

Stan’s advice on a new bronze plate is good. If that thing is bent or dished it is impossible to get correct gear mesh without resorting to questionable methods. A wise investment and new ring gear bolts too for sure.

Erik Barrett

Les, that is how the French bar locates the bore. It has four support bearings which is an improvement over the KRW unit.

Erik Barrett

I bored mains for years with a KRW bar. I now use a French bar and used it on this block. With these kind of machines any setup error is more likely to place the crank too far from the cam rather than too close unless you abuse the equipment with a hammer or other implement of destruction. I am very...

Erik Barrett

Yes, it has happened to me. About 30 years ago I was driving my dump truck loaded heavy to our club swap meet. It had a Ruckstell, Warford, and no auxiliary brakes. They were not available new at that time and I had been unable to procure an original set. Spare me the lecture, we all know it was a d...

Erik Barrett

I believe that Governor Newsome and and his cronies in the State legislature truly believe if they passed a law mandating the sun not come up tomorrow, that it would not! Who do these freaks think they are? We are a very long way from independence from fossil fuels, regardless of legislation.

Erik Barrett

4-8-8-4. 600 tons watered and fueled.

Erik Barrett

Allan, LOL, that would be a little messy and it would have to be a big bucket. If it’s anything like 844, the fireman has a couple valves to feed it fuel. It uses steam pressure to atomize the oil and inject it into the firebox. I dont think one stoker could have shoveled enough coal to power a big ...

Erik Barrett

1.2 million lbs of railroad history. Do you know they are fueling that beast with used motor oil?

Erik Barrett

Transmission rebuilt with bushings too tight. Most likely triple gears but any of them can cause this. I have had to fix many of these here. Some of them are so bad they rip the pins out of the flywheel. Others just weld the bushing to the pin. Anyway, your engine is coming out for repairs. A proble...

Erik Barrett

Put me down for one.

Erik Barrett

You are better off just swapping ends with the axle and leaving the perches alone. Now would be a good time to make sure your spindles are not on the wrong side also. That can be dangerous.

Erik Barrett

I thought some might be interested in how we pressure test model T’s. Every block and head that comes out of here goes through this. It’s very simple to do but it has prevented quite a few flawed parts from being sent out the door only to cause problems later.

Erik Barrett

All things are possible. I am going to try to reunite Terry’s model T with its original engine block that matches the frame number. It’s a sad case that is going to need a lot of work, but will be worth the effort if it can be done.

Erik Barrett

This was a car I bought from the estate of a local club member. I put in a Stipe cam, Reeder flathead, and a couple other goodies. The bearings looked good, I was told they were redone when the car was restored. My guess is the crank was not magnafluxed and was put in cracked. I had it on the Nation...

Erik Barrett

Bent rod can cause noise.

Erik Barrett

Those Ford time studies are a crock. Flat rate times are still that way today, and even worse if it’s a warranty job. They assume nothing will go wrong like a broken bolt, incorrect parts provided, and a host of other things. This job would have taken me 30-40 hours to do by myself. I had good helpe...

Erik Barrett

Erik Barrett

Well, it was quite a weekend. I had an ideal combination of parts, equipment, and people helping to make the project a success. Steven and my model T partner and best pal Robert Weitzel were troopers on this job. This is a car I got from the estate of a local club member. I did not build the engine ...

Erik Barrett

The thrust washers in your rear end have likely failed.

Erik Barrett

It should take several times what you think it will. Every little complication takes all day to correct.

Erik Barrett

What Burger said. Unless you are doing nothing but parades, you want the high speed gear set.

Erik Barrett

What Tony said. Also helps to remove the brake and reverse pedals.

Erik Barrett

We told you and have always said increased compression is the biggest bang for the buck you can get in a model T. Now you know. Brakes next. Left handed Ruckstell shifter too? Wild Cherry is not a tour car. We only get about five miles on the engine between rebuilds. Still would like to take you for...

Erik Barrett

Follow instructions to the letter.

Erik Barrett

Insert bearings really like filtered oil. So the guys running them on splash should change the oil quite frequently.

Erik Barrett

The early perches are not long enough to properly attach a later wishbone. When we build double wishbone speedsters and race cars I mill the axle 1/8” on top and bottom so the perch protrudes through the lower wishbone far enough to use the correct conical nut and cotter pin.

Erik Barrett

We use 351 Windsor Ford V8 exhaust valves, 1970 vintage with great success. They are large enough to put in without having to replace worn out valve seats but not so large they get into the head gasket. They have to be shortened a bit and you can ream out your worn out valve guides to 11/32”.

Erik Barrett

Nice work. My KRW pan jig was also abused as a welding bench after the Ford dealer in Lordsburg, New Mexico gave it to one of their mechanics in the 40’s when model T’s were not coming in anymore. I had to mill the surface to restore it. That takes a big mill. I used a Storm Vulcan block master with...

Erik Barrett

Thanks guys. I will see about getting a video done. I can just barely post pics successfully without them being sideways.

Erik Barrett

Tonight my dad and I poured some T main caps, about four sets of them for projects in the queue. This is something we have done together for so many years and there are hundreds of engines out there with our bearings. Dad and I are best friends and we are perfect partners when the fires in the shop ...

Erik Barrett

Why wouldn’t you want the TT at the party?

Erik Barrett

You can also move the lever back so you don’t have to reach so far forward to use it.

Erik Barrett

Running timing too retarded will get the manifold hot.

Erik Barrett

Here’s a shot of the finish bored bearing.

Erik Barrett

It was at Bakersfield. I picked it up there.

Erik Barrett

My phone likes to put up pictures inverted on this site.

Erik Barrett

I was recently asked to do some babbit work on a 1904 model B Ford. I had to replace the transmission output shaft support bearing and the babbited spherical socket for the torque tube ball. Both of these are in an aluminum subframe. The bearing itself was straightforward but required tooling to be ...

Erik Barrett

Rumble Seat Garage and Wild Cherry II racing team will be there. How about 10 AM at the shade tent by the food booth for a forum member meeting? The table closest to the check out line and then we can go to where there’s room. Name badges will help up recognize each other.

Erik Barrett

Herm and Kevin have it right. A pan that is flat on a surface plate may not be truly aligned. I have rarely seen a pan that did not need some correction. The KRW jig is a demanding master. Either a pan is perfect or it is not. Most can be brought into acceptable standards.

Erik Barrett

I know of two. One failed due to improper installation. The other one was horribly abused in a race car. We forgot to turn down the rev limiter and our dyno tuner hit second gear at well over 6000 RPM. Not kidding. Not qualified for warranty. We got a new one and the block survived for a few more ra...

Erik Barrett

The way I feel business should be done. The car was a strong runner, going to be even better now.

Erik Barrett

Overheads with high ratio rocker arms don’t need a high lift cam. In fact it’s very hard on the cam and its bearings. The Stipe you mentioned is a good choice. I like using a model A cam with overheads.

Erik Barrett

Steven bought this car from me at the Bakersfield swap meet. It is a car I bought from an estate a couple years ago. We put in a Stipe cam and high compression flathead, along with a few other things. Well, the crank let go. Steven called me and let me know without any negativity or attitude whatsoe...

Erik Barrett

Jeff, good thing you don’t have that high compression head on there yet. Or do you?

Erik Barrett

I threw some trash in my TT dump truck today.

Erik Barrett

Ross makes beautiful pistons, the nicest I have seen. They made the custom set we use in the Wild Cherry. They can make whatever you want if you need something special but have programs to make anything they have already done.

Erik Barrett

The overheads made in the T days were very low compression, not much more than a stock T, because the gas available then did not work well with high compression. The idea was flow with these heads. With modern fuel, you can use high domed pistons to improve performance.

Erik Barrett

Bob, a safety check seminar is a great club event at the beginning of touring season. The MTFCA checklist is a perfect guideline. Even seasoned tour veterans find things to improve on.

Erik Barrett

Jeff is going home tomorrow with his engine. We did it with partner Robert Weitzel. We took care of the other issues while we were in there, Jeff will be touring in no time. Would not have been possible without all the help.

Erik Barrett

It’s pretty safe to say that if you are going to drive these antique cars on modern roads at speeds that are comfortable, it is likely you are going to have what we call an “event”, if the car has not been completely rebuilt with these conditions in mind. Admin Jeff is a friend of ours. This is not ...

Erik Barrett

It’s very common for late brake drums to be cracked in that area. In fact almost all of them are. We have built many of them with no problems but you cannot over torque the bolts. I use Loctite on the bolts and tighten them by hand to about 20 ft/lbs.

Erik Barrett

I am with Herm on this. We like all of the machine work on the cylinders and valves to be done before we do the bearings. All of that involves cleaning and other work that can only contaminate my bearings. When I finish a bearing job I clean all parts and bolt in the crankshaft, then put a bag on th...

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