MTFCA Forum

Not much...it's too hot even at 8:00pm.

Then again, I had to get some stuff done.

Thursday I drove about 20 miles to a local car show, so I could hand out flyers to my car show next month. Met a lot of nice people, an old friend, and took a young couple for a ride.

Saturday I went on a tour with the Dairyland Tin Lizzie group and added another 130 miles. A young lady in the group was able to drive a Model T for the first time, so it was called Lilly's Lizzie Tour. We stopped at a cheese factory for some cheese, visited a Victorian Mansion, ate lunch, and then stopped for ice cream on the way home. Later that day our neighborhood had it's annual block party and I gave rides to about 20 kids and a few adults. Some kids must have gone around the neighborhood 4-5 times.
Later this week I head up to Minneapolis area for the New London to New Brighton Antique Car Run. I will try to post a few pictures. I know others will, too. www.antiquecarrun.org

The heat wave, in Kansas at least, finally broke this weekend. My wife wanted to go T driving, so how could I say no? I think we won the award Saturday for "the oldest car to get gas at Casey's on 8/5/23"

I finally installed the transmission screen in my Runabout. The transmission door was installed inside out. It should have been obvious to cousin Bo (who assembled the engine in the '80's) that the painted side goes out, not in. Everything I could see inside looks good. That was a pleasant surprise.

I felt good enough to do some work in the shop after my 2-week health break. The spare tire on the Coupe had lost air so I put on a good one. I left my reflector bar off as it makes changing tires more time consuming. These Riversides I got from Rich B. in the '60s are great spares. I wouldn't buy whitewalls, but his all-white paint job looks great these days. I noticed my taillight needed refreshing. The plastic window disintegrated, and the white cardboard reflector warped out of shape. I think these were standard and they do make the taillight brighter. I also resoldered the socket as it was loose. I made sure there was a good ground to the spare bracket. The wire insulation was frayed so I refreshed it with "friction tape". The light didn't come on so I will check the bulb and connections soon. It was nice to be doing some work again.
Rich

Rich,

Sorry to read that you have had health issues but I'm glad to see your out tinkering again on the cars.

Best wishes
Denny

Thanks Perry. The good doctors here have kept me alive for 33 years and I hope for that many more. I'm almost 76. We all have to take our turn. Meanwhile, the forum is some of the best medicine going and I enjoy it almost every day.
Thank you all for that.
I got the taillight to work. The plugs have been exposed to the outdoors, Summer and Winter for 10 years now. They fit tighter into the sockets and have some corrosion and dust in them. I think these are old originals. I wiped with lacquer thinner and scuffed with Scotch pads and they fit better now. The headlight plugs needed it too and work fine now. Grounding is also a problem with outdoor cars.
My cars that sit outdoors show me many things that are problems and some that really are not, that I wouldn't know about with the pampered indoor cars. This gives me better insight into what owners contended with back in the day. I thoroughly enjoy that. Something many don't get to know.
Rich

My ignition switch had started acting up the past couple of drives, so I removed it yesterday, cleaned the contacts, and bent them up a bit so that they press harder into their pockets.

Took my 1912 pan to Brent Terry's shop in Elizabethton, TN for him to check it out on his pan straightening table. Now is the time to check it and correct any deficiencies.

Sometimes it's nice to have a lazy day out in the shop without urgent projects. Today I rearranged the clutter a bit. The lighting on the Coupe reminded me of how bad the body panels were. I can't imagine trying to get them straight enough for black paint. I cleaned a few parts including this fan grease cup and pondered how they made it and when. It was on a brass hub fan, but I suspect those were brass cups and bases. I'm not sure which years these were used. I have seen cup bases with the rubber seal before and thought what a good idea it was. The different shapes of the clamp areas are interesting. Does anyone know when and where else Ford used them. There are many cups without the rubber seal. Anyway, the weather was great and garage time is always good.
Rich

Looking further, I see this on FordFix. I hadn't ever heard of an aluminum cup before???

What I did on my Model T today ?.. Well, I walked out to the shop, saw 108* on the thermometer, and walked back into the AC house

Rich Eagle wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 11, 2023 4:34 pm

Looking further, I see this on FordFix.
FordFixx.jpg
I hadn't ever heard of an aluminum cup before???

Dont believe everything you see on the internet.

Those internal threaded cup bases were only used on early fan shafts as shown.

The seal is a crimped leather ring. The leather seal can be replaced with an O-ring.
The leather acted as a seal & tensioned the cup to not vibrate off.

Busy month so far. Frame cracked between engine side mount and body mounting bracket on my speedster on an 800 mile tour in late June. Body here, engine there, front and rear axle assemblies over there along with a bunch of misc. parts. Finished reassembly and fired it up last Friday morning (Aug 4th), drove it to Oregon for a 100 mile endurance run on Saturday and a 146 mile tour on Sunday and drove back home on Monday. GPS showed 852 miles over the 4 days. I took Tuesday off. Tour day was all paved but on great roads. Hot 100 run was a great route with very little traffic and fine scenery but lots of gravel. I've got a lot of cleanup to do as the dust and some leaking oil made an ugly mess. Time to take care of some minor maintenance and change 2 tires before a 200 mile endurance run on Sept 3rd. Oh, and my Model A wants a little clean up and attention as well. Sure glad I'm retired.

Finalized the patterns for the “C” for the Delivery Car, and gluing up the maple boards to finish off the C pieces.

We took the 25 to the freeport thresheree last wekend. Got to drive.

the originals where to sloppy for my likingI will finalize later when I buck them tight
Bryant

Spent a NICE day at the Wheatridge Heritage Center, Baugh House. This is the first house in the Wheatridge area. Originally a log cabin. Later, they built a Victorian hose around/over the original log cabin. You will see the original log cabin while touring the house.

Drove the RPU to the gas and steam show in the next town. Nothing better than gravel roads and a Model T on a nice day.

Rebuilt Leakey carb, replaced sediment bowl valve and fuel line and installed a fuel filter. Next up is to replace stripped stud on coil box and replace the contacts in the coil box as soon as the parts arrive.
Also replaced crummy spark plug wires and a new timer harness with proper routing and clips to secure it.

Went to the drive-in then pulled the radiator the next day, due to a leak.

ICE CREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First, this wasn’t my car, it belongs to my son. He missed the 2022 Old Car Festival because his Heinze coil box went dead. This summer I disassembled the box and replaced three contact springs and the copper wire leading to each. The shop next door to mine shares a wall and the “farm” inside caused havoc with the humidity in my place and the machinist two doors over. Wholesale prices dropped and they moved out and all is now well. I’m happy to say the new guy next door is great.

So, After reassembling the box and soldering the wire to the split rivets we heard four coils singing. Tonight we cleaned out his fuel system. My son was so delighted to hear his car run that he bought me a burger and a beer. My daughter’s son was helping so he got fed as well. He’s eight years old and has no intention of missing the merry go round Friday night at the OCF.

Got to painting the black parts.
It's a 100 footer.
I looked for steel replacement fenders and never found any. So, we patched up what we had.

Just installed the horn. Finishing up mounting the tires and doing some touch up. Should be ready for the road soon.

This was a twofer month, I just sold my 1914 roadster on the model t face book pages, and save the best for last, I now have in my shop my repurchase, the 1915 model t roadster known as the "Flying Dutchman" Very historic car powered by the famous and very rare Gallivan dual overhead cam engine. Now just waking it up from a long sleep. Hope to have it on the road next week. Once on the road, pictures will follow. When I bought the car back I got a very nice gold gilt desk sign which I will soon change my nick here to "Dr Gallivan.

frontyboy

This week I moved our 1911 and 1915 to our new to us house. The house is about 3 miles from our old house, and it is not often that I drive both back to back within a few minutes of each other. The 3rd stall of the garage is more than double the depth of a regular stall, so there is even enough room for a 3rd T! I haven't told my wife that yet though.

It also has an 8' door, so it will be nice to be able to drive the touring car in and out without lowering the top. It will be the first time in years that I also get to park my "regular" car in the garage too.

NealW wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 16, 2023 7:35 am

This week I moved our 1911 and 1915 to our new to us house. The house is about 3 miles from our old house, and it is not often that I drive both back to back within a few minutes of each other. The 3rd stall of the garage is more than double the depth of a regular stall, so there is even enough room for a 3rd T! I haven't told my wife that yet though.

It also has an 8' door, so it will be nice to be able to drive the touring car in and out without lowering the top. It will be the first time in years that I also get to park my "regular" car in the garage too.

Looks great Neal! No drip pans under those beauties?

Arbs wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 16, 2023 9:17 am

Looks great Neal! No drip pans under those beauties?

I wish! I hadn't yet put them down yet when I took the picture. They came over in the moving truck later, and both had already marked their spot! This garage has an epoxy painted floor, which is easier to clean up than our old cement one!

This morning I backed Lizzy, my 26 Touring, out of the garage and gave her a good wash. I'm getting her ready for the Sooner Celebration we have every year in our town Waukomis a week from this Saturday.

This afternoon I made a jig for locating screw holes to mount a Stewart 22 speedometer wheel gear on a freshly painted wood wheel. I used a Ford spindle and a 1/2 inch rod threaded on one end for an adjusting nut and drilled a quarter inch threaded hole for a pointed bolt on the other end.
The distance between opposing screw holes on the wheel gear is 6 and 1/2 inches. I drilled the quarter inch hole for the threaded bolt half that distance from the center of the spindle with the bolt installed in the spindle held in place by the nut. I cut plenty of threads on the end to make adjustments.

A few months ago, half my turn signals quit working. The left turn side worked normally, but flipping the switch to the right got a faint flicker from the indicator. I assumed something had gone haywire in the control panel, so I took it out of the car to investigate. With all the outgoing wires disconnected I found that the control panel worked normally.
It didn't take long to find the broken insulation that was grounding out the right side. The arrow points to where some bare wire was showing and had been grounding the circuit.



Part of the reason for the cut insulation was that the wire going into the lamp was very tight in the hole, and pulling it in had made the cut. Originally I had drilled a ⁷⁄₆₄" hole, so I enlarged it to ⁵⁄₃₂". That allowed a new wire to slide in easily. Since learning about the mini-torch here on the forum, I've found it better than a soldering gun on a lot of jobs



The green lights are turn signal indicators. Both of them are flashing together, along with the red light, to indicate that the emergency lights are on. The blue light reminds me that the tail lights are on. Opposite that, to the left, is another blue indicator that isn't lit because it comes on when you step on the brake pedal. All these lights look washed out in a photo, especially the red, but in real life they are really red, blue, and green.

Finally got the screen sides and canopy done. The original door mechanism needs some fine tuning. Probably did not work that well when new.

Looking good Don !!! Someone on here was requesting info regarding the screen sided TT - yours is fabulous !

AandTman wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 21, 2023 2:26 pm

Finally got the screen sides and canopy done. The original door mechanism needs some fine tuning. Probably did not work that well when new.

Oh Donald, I really like that!

Just finished putting everything back together after completing a valve job. Starting it up tomorrow.

Celebrated Nellie’s 100th birthday a few weeks ago. Also installed a Miller Master Carburetor that I picked up at Hershey two years ago. It’s the first time I’ve had it going with this carburetor and I’m really impressed with the acceleration particularly going up hills. Also working on rebuilding various vintage generator cutouts.

My generator only worked when it wanted to. It would put out about 1.5V at times. I was going to remove it to check the insides when I saw that the commutator contacts were sooty. I did a proper cleaning and polishing on them and it is working reliably again. With renewed confidence, we went to a small car show yesterday at a retirement community. We had six of our local club members there. (I forgot to get photos.) Our 30-mile trip was stressful. My Runabout's ignition kept turning off. I would mess with the position of the key to get it running again. The problem is obviously in the switch contacts. Since Ben Martin is not working in switches until October, I need another solution. My car does not have a magneto ring and only runs on battery. I think that I can add a jumper wire on the switch from Bat to Mag and use the Mag key position. It's worth investigating.

Hi Mark,

you can try the jump wire but... .
About five years ago I had a similar problem on my 1926 touring. Tried a few times to make a repair on the switch till I fried up the magneto by a short inside the switch.
Than I replaced the switch by a on-off-on switch and all the problems were over.

Good luck
Andre
Belgium

Rebuilt the foot starter switch, cleaned up contacts new gaskets back in June, replaced battery cables and starter with new 2/0 braided copper cables..... Starter spins a lot faster using the same 6 volt battery...... Now just need a little bit more time to get back into the system to install a battery cut off switch on the interior of the front seat riser in the 26, since access to the battery on the runabout is a bit tight thru the trunk.

Just installed the transmission oil screen and magnet.

Finally received my new Anderson Timer and LED headlight globes that were on back order from Langs. The Anderson timer runs great, and I can see where I am going in the dark, just in case I get caught out past sunset. Those were jobs on my Fordor sedan. My 16' pickup had been leaking water on the shop floor. I removed the radiator and it has been at a nearby radiator shop for a few weeks. It was a new Brassworks radiator 10 years ago. Much of the solder around the tubes on the top and even bottom tanks had cracked and come loose. What I thought was to be a small repair has turned into a major rebuild. Better than dumping the contents on the road I guess. Lucky I have a good old school radiator repair guy nearby. Looking forward to some Spring time Touring soon in both cars.

Since it's been too hot to work in the garage on it....I stare at it a lot!

I got the 12 roadster on the road finally. Also made a new float for a 5 ball from a block of closed cell material purchased from Langs years ago snd a couple f minor minor things.

RGould1910 wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 01, 2023 12:12 am

I got the 12 roadster on the road finally. Also made a new float for a 5 ball from a block of closed cell material purchased from Langs years ago snd a couple f minor minor things.

20230829_184220.jpg

20230829_170601.jpg

20230829_184158.jpg

20230827_133556.jpg

20230831_142332.jpg

Looks great Richard!