MTFCA Forum

I find the old car hobby is often a dance with two steps forward and then one back.

Last Saturday my local Model T club had a picnic scheduled in Crystal Lake, IL, which is about 31 miles from my house, and through some pretty congested traffic. Another member who lives about 7 miles from the picnic site, offered his yard to park trailers. So the plan was to trailer to his house and drive my T from there to the picnic. I had been having some starting issues, so Thursday before the picnic I adjusted the carburetor and it now started reliably. Friday I washed the car and touched up the brass. Saturday morning came and it was a glorious day. We arrived at our friends house, parked the trailer, and the T started right up. While still on the trailer I proceeded to put the floor boards, seat cushion, and floor mat (that I remove for towing on an open trailer) back in the car before backing off the trailer. Just as I was about to replace the floor mat, I looked at my radiator and noticed a fountain (not a trickle). Apparently my almost new radiator developed a huge leak where the core meets the bottom tank. Well so much for driving to the picnic! The good news was my T was still on the trailer, we were safe in our friends yard. If you are going to break down, in a driveway is the place to be.

So we proceeded with Plan B, which was to ride along in our friends 1911: We enjoyed the picnic, and I got several leads on local repair shops that will work on brass radiators, so all things considered, not a bad day.

At the moment my garage is crowded, so I can't work on the T without rearranging everything, so I decided (since we are in the middle of a drought) to leave the T on the trailer with a tarp over it.

Last night (Sunday) at 10:50 PM the tornado sirens went off, and they were wailing. A tornado was sited (it didn't touch down) in North Aurora / Batavia. And my T is outside on an open trailer, under a tarp. Only thing to do is go down to the basement until the storm passes. The tornado did touch down in several suburbs to the east of me, lots of property damage, some injuries, no deaths. And so this morning here is my T: You can barely tell that it had rained. So our glass is definitely half full.

It’s the solder. The stuff used now is garbage.

A lot of the repro radiator issues is that there often is not a good mechanical connection between some parts. The entire radiator should hold together without a drop of solder and the solder should only be a “sealer”. When parts don’t fit tightly together and solder is used as “glue” to hold parts together is where problems occur.

Well all isn't as it first appeared. I lost a fan blade, which caused the next blade to fold over on itself and then gouged the radiator. So the radiator wasn't at fault.

WayneJ wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 21, 2021 1:43 pm

Well all isn't as it first appeared. I lost a fan blade, which caused the next blade to fold over on itself and then gouged the radiator. So the radiator wasn't at fault.

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We see this a lot. Is the answer to upgrade fan & pulley to much later unit & loose the "original" aspect or is there a good replacement/fix? I am thinking Its time to get proactive on my brass T.

Well the sad part is I had already purchased a new fan with a ball bearing hub and was planning on installing it this week. Oh, well!

Wayne, sorry to see that. It sucks!
John, don't hesitate to "upgrade" to the modern ball bearing unit..you can thread the grease cup on the inside end of the shaft and no one is the wiser. I've done this on two of my brass cars over the years and love them. And no more pigged up engine compartment either! Even seems to run quieter.
Just sayin

Find a good radiator shop, they should be able to solder this relatively small damage.
It worked with mine and it is cooling fine, absolutely no overheating.
And the damage was massive:

I strip every fan to bare metal for inspection prior to repainting and installing. More often than not, I find cracks emanating from the rivet holes. Fan blade inspection should be a frequent point of maintenance along with other critical parts or adjustments.

The pessimist says the glass is half empty. The optimist says it is half full. The engineer says the glass is too damned big.

I got my radiator back from the radiator shop yesterday. I think they did a nice job. $165. Fortunately only one tube was damaged. If you need a radiator shop in the western suburbs of Chicago, I can recommend them: