MTFCA Forum

Someone mentioned Turlock and it too has been cancelled for 2021..
This is from the web site;

Turlock Swap Meet. COVID-19 UPDATE September 2, 2020. The Modesto Area A's 2021 Turlock Swap Meet January 30-January 31, 2021. Has Been Cancelled

I’m halfway there with my vaccinations

I would attend a Phoenix swap meet.

This was part of the receipt from one dealer.

: Model T warranty in 1920

I take “snaps” to remind me where I see stuff and sure enough every so often I get a good picture.
This manifold display was taken last year at the Lincoln Annual meeting at the Smith Museum.

: Model T manifolds

I did the same as Dan, not had a problem since.

Against my advice Lucky Howard Genrich bored Lucky #7 out to 0.125” on his last rebuild and it worked. I said he was lucky and Howard agreed. By the way that’s why Egge have that size pistons

When we built the Speedster in 1992 we found a SureMike crankshaft for the project. We had it checked for cracks by using die and found a small surface imperfection. I spoke to Bruce and Lee and both said that most all original cranks had such problems. We decided to move ahead using the SureMike. I...

As much as I love my Model T Toohobby and everything that goes with it, I find that it is taking up more time now than I have available. I am struggling to keep up with the everyday basics of life just now in these most trying times. Cleaning and cooking and helping maintaining my home. The garden a...

Absolutely nothing☹️ I’ve been working on my new (to me) house. Sanded the floors, some new drywall and refurbished the kitchen cabinets. 0951552F-2CD4-4169-A479-4DFE68EFCE45.jpeg 575DF1B4-D6C6-428B-A5DB-AED41B9EF999.jpeg I hope to move all the stuff in the workshop after the house move and resume T...

Changed.

Larry. I respect your opinion but in this case if I agreed with you, we would both be wrong. Case in point. When the CDO first appeared in April 1901 it had no brakes at the rear wheels. The braking was on the transmission just like the Model T. By 1903 the Oldsmobile designers realized this arrange...

If you look back in The Vintage Ford, there was an article about a father/son speedster project which cost a total of $250. Mind you the Father (was it Don Black) had some generous friends.

I believe Jeff answered the question correctly though I doubt it was updated for ten years as by 1929 Ford was well into the Model A production.
In 1919 Ford still had shareholders, so all the shareholders owned all the cars until they were sold. Using this logic, I own all Dell computers. Ha Ha

The modern Rocky mountain brakes are slightly different than the period brakes. The period brake linings were pivoted at the rear. The effect of this when driving forward is for the top half of the lining to tighten but the lower half loosen. Naturally in reverse the effect is the opposite, so the b...

Thanks Les for some more details. The ingenuity of machinists always amazes me.

Sent you an email

I tend to call my Ts by the year of manufacture, so the 1909 touring was “09” and the 1914 touring is called the “14”
However the 1924 Coupe is known as “The Coupe” but the 1915 Speedster is “Ricky”. The latter was defined by my daughter and son-in-law.

I guess that the aluminum cylinder with the hole is the pickup and I believe I can see a filter inside.a couple of questions which I suspect many would like to know more details. Is the pump as low as the pan will allow? How did you connect the gear to the rear of the camshaft? How does the oil that...

I can usually tell if it’s an A crank by the “bumps” on the side of the pan.

5,000,000 is a Coupe and belongs to the Smith Museum in Lincoln, though I believe it is currently on loan to the MTFCA Museum in Richmond.
I don’t know if it was one of Bruce’s jokes but he once told me he knew of the location of three 10,000,000 cars

Last weekend I went on a 100 mile run in the local mountains and after trailering home it wouldn’t drive off the trailer. No low, reverse or high. When in high I could stall the motor by depressing reverse. So it decided the failure was after the transmission. So on Tuesday I removed the rear axle a...

I have been involved with two accidents in antique vehicles over the last 46 years. The first was in the 1915 speedster when the front radius rod broke just behind the axle. I lost all steering and we turn right into a tree. My wife had the seat belt on but slid under the belt and her feet hit the w...

When I was restoring the 1909, I found a crack behind the cam gear. Fixing it using loc-n-stitch was $1000 so I asked around for a replacement block but found that a rebuilt 09 block fixed correctly was worth around $6000. So I went with the lok-n-stitch on top of the regular rebore, hardened valve ...

I have had an electric shut off on the 1914 touring since we restored it in 2003 and it’s worked flawless every since.
Of course now I’ve written that, it will fail within a couple of weeks

I also found about twenty copies of a blueprint showing a 1904 CDO Model B in plan and elevation view. Most are now spoken for but I have a couple remaining.

As I remember the one Ed Archer owned was an original vehicle that had been used by tourists in San Francisco. I remember the 10 cent charge painted on the doors. It may have been the car he rescued from some local canyon. I believe he restored it. I wonder where it is now?

From memory, the high limit end play on the crank is 0.006” but I’ve had engines in for rebuilds up to 0.014” so you should be ok for awhile As an aside, I remember in Milt Webb’s tuning book, he estimated that when run at high speed, he figured the wear could be as high as 0.001”per thousand miles....

Mark is the winner

I am moving and clearing out a lot of stuff. One interesting find is a set of four drawings (each about 30”x20”) for the wood in a 17-22 roadster. They are available for the postage.
I don’t see any name or copyright on the drawings.

When I had access to a mill, I use to cut about 1/8” off the lifter boss so I could more easily adjust the lifters. It didn’t seem to do any harm. If Terry really is writing about the valve guide, I can’t see 1/4” missing causing too much harm. I suppose it could be welded and ream out but knowing m...

I find it best not to try any short cuts when re-installing the hogs head in the car. This includes removing the exhaust manifold, loosening the bolts below the UJ housing, nothing loose above the opening such as a key in the ignition and ANYTHING in the way. I also use the custom tool to hold the n...

Frank surely you mean non-demountable wheels in your first sentence. From my limited experience I didn’t need to remove a non-demountable wheel as I only suffered one flat and I changed the tube with the wheel still on the car. Mind you I prefer demountable rims on a car used for longer tours. 😊 I d...

Les, what was the problem with the Ford rods?

I expanded the very first picture and there appears to be a rusty line and a clear line around the hub. To me this implies the hub is moving with respect to the spokes. If the nuts are tight then is time for new spokes. I made a spoke press and have rebuilt several demountable wheels quite successfu...

My 09 came with a Heinz coil box but the build sheet indicated it should be a Kingston. I found one in Michigan and had to drive to his home to pick it up (see this months Vintage Ford).
When I arrived home it fitted perfectly

It was the same thread for the whole of the Model T production from my 1909 Touring thru to my friends 1927 touring

By the way the two bolts should have holes in the heads and then wired together

On my 14 Touring I can remove and replace the motor without removing the steering column but I have to leave the starter off. It’s tight but I’ve done it a couple of times. I use a lifting eye in #4 for the vertical lift and then switch to one in #1 for the vertical lift. I also helped a friend with...

As I remember the valve on the Chevy rims are at a different location to the valve on the Model T rims.
I found this to my cost when the spare on the 17 Touring was a Chevy and all the rest Ford.

If the car is wired as an original Model T and you didn’t turn on the ignition or start the engine during the charging process, then you did no damage. My reasoning is simple if you follow the wiring diagram, as there will be no path for an excess voltage or current to reach the generator (the engin...

There are at least three way of looking inside the guts of a T motor besides pulling the cylinder head and only requires simple tools. First it the bottom pan, yes I know it’s 15 small bolts but it’s easy enough. From here you can see and measure the end play in the crank and rods. If they are withi...

Jerry’s idea worked just fine. I had a couple of spare tappets so I even had the correct screw and nut. So I replaced the valve, adjusted the tappet, not too tight, and buttoned it all up. It runs but now has an exhaust leak. I can fix that another day.

Thanks Jerry

Great idea.
I’ll give that a try when I get more enthusiastic.

The speedster wasn’t running good when I went to it a couple of weeks ago in preparation for the annual speedster run. There didn’t seem too much compression on a couple of cylinders. So I removed the head and I wasn’t too happy as there was lots crud in a couple of cylinders which settled under a c...

According to the build sheet for my 1909, the number was the second engine stamped on 4 October 1909 and it was shipped to a customer later that day !
By the way an abridged version of the engine dating is available on this web site under Encyclopedia.

I built up a speedster 4 valve rajo for a customer and the block didn’t have the two oil drain holes. The oil built up and would leak out at car shows much to the isners annoyance. So we bought a long drill, removed the inspection pan and drilled the two missing holes from the bottom. They may not b...

Be careful as to the order of installing the rivets on the front cross member

: Installing rivets on front crossmember

When I restored the 1909 Touring, the teeth on the quadrant eere very worn. Also it appeared to be a 1914 style column at 56” long. So I made the decision to cut it down to the correct 50” and replace the quadrant. There were no very difficult problems though installing the two brass rivets to hold ...

Just today on Facebook, Stan Howe recounted how a coupe he now owns was used into the fifties by a local Montana couple.

I don’t believe moving the hole on either the crank, dog or crankshaft will not do what you wrote in the first thread. There are two compression on each revolution of the crankshaft. It follows that there will be one compression for each half turn of the crankshaft. You can move the alignment as to ...

In 1988 I was visiting my brother in New Zealand and on one of the trips we saw a Model T pick up. Naturally we caught up and met a delightful young couple who we living off the land. I suppose they were hippies but very pleasant. However the pick up was their only means of transport. So some (rathe...

You can easily reverse the internals within the Ford rear axle. Don’t ask how I know. However you cannot do it with a Ruckstell axle.

Is the roadster body still available ?

Is the roadster body still available ?

I think your diagnosis is correct.
The magneto might be a little weak but I doubt even a rebuilt one could supply two six volt bulbs in parallel. A simple solution requiring no rewiring would be to switch to twelve volt bulbs.

One of my customers runs Model A manifolds on all his Ts complete with Zenith or Tilletson (?) carbs and custom exhaust systems. They run great and are superior to the Model T set up and that includes the Stomberg OF that I use. Except for my requirement to be reasonably authentic, I’d run them as w...

You can only post five pictures in each post. The solution is just to add more pictures in a second post. There appears to be no limit on how many posts

You made me think

Thanks
Tony

While I was working on my 09 I took a photo of Kim Dobbins very original 1910.

: Wiring on original 1910

I duplicated it on my 09 except I never found the correct clip. Hopefully the new owner will find one or make an appropriate clip.

The 1909 cars used a shorter column. I suspect some portly owners had the column shortened to provide a more comfortable driving position. When I restored the 09 it had a standard 1914 column which is too long. After some consideration I decided to shorte both the shaft and the outer column and repl...

One of my customers has a Frontiac overhead and wanted more torque than the rewiring of a standard T for 12 volts can provide. So he bought one of these geared starters from Chaffins and it seems to work just fine. It’s been in service for close to a year and he is still happy. I too was concerned a...

I remember speaking to Bruce McCalley on this very subject, well actually was it worth magnafluxing a model T crank. He advised not bothering as most T cranks show some crack somewhere. So on my coupe, which was rebuilt in 1990, was just reground and rebabbitted. So far it’s been fine. Of course bot...

Jeff has made an adjustment to the BBB web site.
This is my picture that would not upload.

: 1909 on its way to Quebec

Success
Thanks Jeff

I email my failing picture to Chris but I have heard nothing back to date.

Craig rather than a DMM I use a 12v bulb 18 watt bulb.
Bulbs give all the info you need, essentially a perfect GO/NOGO test.
DMMs often get confused by the nasty non-sinusoidal waveforms put out by the magneto and the rotten DC put out from the generator.

I strongly suggest you acquire the booklets put out by the MTFCA regarding both the transmission and the electrical systems. While pnot inclusive of the early cars, they are invaluable for all black radiator Model Ts. They will help you solve both your problems. You do need a correct band for that b...

This is the picture I tried to post but here I reduced the pixel count to 720 high and 540 wide 168E5F60-8F96-4E6E-964B-E0C56222C8BC.jpeg This version is 1280 by 960 759B85D1-4ADE-47C4-B103-590FD1F72272.jpeg This is the original 4032 x 3024 47672B0F-6241-4C32-8EDC-5819A2E601ED.png Strange that the p...

I’m using an Apple iPhone 10 with 13.7 OS

Picture that failed Oh I can’t post it but here is the error message 😊 8413C5F4-09CA-4D9C-889C-D26F7C6FCDB6.png In case you can’t see the small print, it reads: The picture must be at least 0 pixels wide, and 0 pixels high and at most 1600 pixels wide and 1200 pixels high. The submitted picture is 1...

Strange as the site did not resize mine. I wonder why. I sent mine to Chris with no response to date.

Steve, I downloaded your picture and it is 553 pixels wide and 1200 pixels high. The 1200 appears to be the upper limit from my experience. The terms portrait and scenery are usually referenced as to how the picture is presented. In your case it is clearly presented as a portrait even though we all ...

When I post vertical picture, portrait I believe, I get the dreaded triangle which indicates a limit of 1200 pixels high and 2400 pixels horizontally. So I have to reduce the picture so it’s less, then it works fine.
Chris I’ll send you the latest one to fail.

End of an era. My 1909 has been sold and is on its way to a new home. I believe he will look after it the way such a unique car should be looked after for many years to come. C939569C-87D5-48C6-80E6-511D9AC3053C.jpeg 0884E402-C5FB-4382-A620-C5829F65BA4F.jpeg 253027BB-FDBC-4C47-9963-D6D5240CAF97.jpeg

Look like the 1909 is sold to Anthony in Quebec.
Thanks MTFCA

I can’t see the detail on the wiring of the ten bolts for the ring gear, but Lee Pierce taught me to wire them in pairs. So bolts are wired in pairs. The three bolts on the differential can be split pinned but those using three studs should be wired together. One old timers trick if the hub or axle ...

Couple of nibbles but no bites.
If anyone is interested, make me an offer, it’s already priced less than it cost me for parts and labor.

From memory the cylinder head bolts on the Curved Dash Oldsmobile was 1/2”-12. These were designed in 1900-01 period and I had assumed (Ass U Me) that the now standard 1/2”-13 had not yet be established. Correct me if I’m wrong but it does seems odd that Ransom Olds would choose an English thread wh...

When I installed the starter on the 1914 speedster I was faced with the same problem, made worse as I wanted to keep the same carb which only had the control for the radiator check. So I made a swivel arm from the manifold stud pulled from the firewall which thru the swivel pulled the choke forward....

When I made the shorter steering shaft for the 09, I used a later column and recut the taper, thread and keyway. I would not recommend welding. JMHO

How sad, such a loss to our T community. I met at Chickasha years ago and was intrigued by his 1910 T in pieces. We discussed it several times and during the discussions I learnt about his skill of converting 1914 blocks into open valve replacements. He even let it slip how you can tell if it’s an o...

Over the years I have run across at least two Model Ts with later 12 volt generators complete with a three terminal voltage regulator box. In both cases I replaced them with the Texas T alternator. Indeed I think I have one of the systems available as taken off a T. If anyone is prepared to pay ship...

Being a retired electrical engineer I have little faith in 100 year old instruments so in the days before LED bulbs we use to set the generator output by turning on all the lites and then moving the third brush until the ammeter read zero. After all running at nite is not typical use for a T and who...

First you want to make sure that when the engine does run, nothing is damaged. So first disconnect the wire From the generator. Insulate the bare end of the wire then connect the terminal on the generator to ground. This will protect the generator from any damage. Now connect a wire from the battery...

Those coils look like the Kingston coils used in 1909-10 model T

15,007,033 at end of primary production in may 1927

They built several thousand more engines until 1941.

It’s all in the Encyclopedia section of this site

I have no irons in this discussion except what I know and can see. The wheels on the picture provided by Glen which is said to be as 220 was purchased has demountable wheels. 6423563D-C8AB-4A17-8EC9-854D875526EE.png To me they look like 6” hubs and I can’t tell if they are one piece spindles. The pi...

The supposed reason to use the positive ground was to reduce the corrosion at the battery terminals.
This is the story I was told, personally I think it’s a load of nonsense. JMHO

Yet even more photos

: Magneto coil ring

: Cast magnets

: Clutch spring retainer

: Transmission in chassis

: Fan spring

Some extra photos.

: Two piece timer

: Boss on left hand side of the block

: Kingston five ball carburetor

: 50” steering column and Kingston coil box

My newly restored 1909 Model T is up for sale. It does appear that I need to downsize a little, so I have reluctantly decided to find a new and loving home for my 09. It has less than six miles on the engine, following a comprehensive rebuild which included all new babbitt, new piston, valves and a ...

My 1909 kit of parts included a white rubber mat, I guess it must be a repro from sometime in the past. If does look quite nice and matches the white rubber mat at the front. Mind you I rather prefer the look of the stained and varnished wood floor.

My daughter enjoys sewing and made me a mask 432EC266-D546-4989-B785-E043C8A3618A.jpeg I asked if she could make one with a T 7639DBE6-1563-493F-9936-3224339B79B6.jpeg This was OK but I wanted an Model T 7125A6AD-CAA8-4F46-BB10-5E6FA5F9FE32.jpeg Oh dear, if it’s an early T it should be green 047806F...

I need to insure the 09 and our friends at Grundy need two pictures. So I cranked it up and parked near the trees and took about a dozen pictures.

: 1909 on Oak Valley

I don’t think the arm should actually touch the frame. All the contact should be the wood block and I believe your block accomplishes that feat. I must admit the arms should lie flatter on top of the frame, that is best fixed with the pan out of the frame. Don’t forget the horizontal bolt. Not too t...

Seems to me that you are telling us that the carb has not been touched from before the rebuild. It would seem reasonable, assuming you are correct, then the problem is nothing to do with the carb. Vacuum leak seems reasonable. Did you put new copper rings and steel rings on the manifold? Is the cams...

When I first rebuilt the 14 Touring I decided to use Evans coolant because of the Z head. It never appeared to boil but would run very hot. I discussed the hot running with the agent for the Evans coolant and he told me the specific gravity does not change with temperature. Oh oh this mean the therm...

When Reading an existing entry on an iPhone, just open two fingers on the screen. When writing an entry, open a reply on an iPhone and just above the Smiles in Normal. Click on Normal and choose the size (large in my example) and you get size=150 and /size both in square brackets. Insert your text b...

From memory the final drive on the 218mph car was 1.8:1 with about 43mph per 1000rpm. The crown wheel and pinion were custom made. I’m sure the whole rear end was very special. The first runs were made with a two speed transmission. On the second attempt a five (or four) gearbox was used. A major pr...

I’m not happy with the motor in the 1914 touring. It runs well but ever since I broke the crank and installed a SCAT , I can hear a knock which I cannot Place. So I plan to remove the motor and check everything again. I suspect a twisted or bent rod. Sooooo I have woken up the coupe so I still have ...

This was a pressure fed crank with less than 10 hours but 6500rpm

: Broken crank

Reliability is in the eye of the beholder.
(Picture from Erik Barrett)

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