MTFCA Forum

On one of our USA holiday trips I looked at a 17 Runabout for sale in "Shelby" Montana. The owner had died and his daughter was selling the car.
They had a large 4 car garage and a wide and long driveway sloping down with a power pole at the end in one corner.
The Lady said help yourself and take it for a drive if you can work out how to start it.
Wendy stayed in our rental car reading her book.
I opened the garage door and the T was facing outwards. So I looked it over then put the handbrake on, Fuel on, levers set, primed it up, Key on and cranked it over.
Car started, I stood in front and replaced the crank into its holder and listened to it run for a few seconds. I then walked around and stood outside the drivers door and adjusted the levers. Then all of a sudden the vibration of the engine flicked the handbrake off, straight into top gear and because the engine was revving a bit high and the drive was sloped it took off!
Split second decision I ran after it, Wendy heard a noise and looked up from her book to see the T driving past her empty and me running flat tac after it. I just managed to catch it, hold on and jump of the running board, drop the throttle and steer past the pole then pull it up.
I found out later it had happened to someone else but they thought they had done something wrong.
I was lucky I wasn't still standing in front!

Honestly, I think the power pole woulda stopped you.

This happened because the hand brake pawl and quadrant are worn out and/or the spring is missing or broken. You got lucky, others have been run over and hurt. This is a dangerous condition.

That's something that ought to be checked before driving, or tie the hand brake back if in doubt. Keeping the hand brake mechanism clean and lightly lubricated is important, too. Mine has never slipped, but stuff happens. My dad used to say, "ALWAYS put the hand brake on so (bleeping) tight that no one can possibly move the car before releasing it".

That happened to our vegetable man in the 1940's. He had a typical vegetable truck with the scale hanging on the back. The brake pall had been worn out for years and he used a stick from the handle to the floorboard. He always went all the way up the hill and then made his stops on the way down. One day it slipped and same thing happened to his except that he was about 76 years old and couldn't run fast enough. It crossed a busy street and then hit a pole. Truck was ruined and he couldn't walk very well after that, even though he didn't get run over. He retired! Good to place a choc block in front of the front wheel even on level ground. You could get pinned against the garage wall or run over when crank starting.
Norm

I like to hear the ratchet sound when applying the brake, but that is a poor practice since it causes needless wear to the ratchet assembly. When applying the brake, hold the ratchet out of engagement as you pull back until the brake is nearly set, then release the ratchet and pull the lever another couple of clicks or so to set the brakes tight.

Danged old Ford ain't got no gnootral!

Yes, that is a funny story Kevin. But you have a grand sense of responsibility to chase after and catch a Model T in high gear going down a hill So, ….did your sense of guilt cause you to buy it ?

Most likely the spring on the handle was broken or missing. Don't ask how I know.

I have installed this Safety Spring on all of my T’s
It’s available at Langs

George - No I didn't but should have.
Ruckstell diff and 5 genuine Buffalo wheels.

Rod, I'm interested in the safety spring you mentioned from Langs. I looked it up in the catalog but I don't know where it goes? Could someone post a picture please? Thanks

Langs Item Number: 3463R
Hook the upper part and with the help of vise grips, pull the spring down, unhook the large ring, place around the lower shaft and re-clip.

This will insure your brake lever will never jump out of position.

Rod

Thanks for the pictures, this is something I've been curious about. I bought that spring but wasn't sure how to install it. Going on today.

NOTE this is a good return spring but make sure your quadrant and quadrant dog is in good shape. you can get all those parts from vendors too and its not to terrible to buck the rivets to install.
Bryant

Great timing I ordered everything from langs to restore this rather mundane but super important function. They have everything in stock btw!

Every time I set the brake I give it a nudge forward to insure it is set regardless of the car. Good habit . . .

You all need a Safe-T-Block. Take a 6"piece of 2x1, cut it in half, screw one piece across the other so have a T shape. Drop the down stroke piece into the slot in front of the lever and it cannot go beyond neutral. We used this in the movies when actors drove Ts - they could throw off the brake, stomp down the pedal and drive out of shot without mowing down a lighting rig.

I like that idea Jem.
Got any pics or drawings to clarify it?

This is certainly not that rare of an occurrence, and not just with Model T's.

I read a LOT of old newspapers, looking for things I am researching. Two of the stories have stuck in my mind.

One was where a man bought a new car, (Not a Ford, I think it was a 2 cylinder Hupmobile) and on the second day he owned it, he failed to set the parking brake, and when it started, it ran him over and broke his neck and paralyzed him from the neck down. Two weeks later his obituary was in the same paper. Life spans of paralyzed people were very short, with no antibiotics or modern medicine. My aunt, who was a nursing instructor at Marquette University, said quadriplegics usually developed pneumonia within a week or so, and death followed quickly thereafter.

The other story was regarding a horse. I have known for many years that horses were nowhere NEAR as popular as people today think they used to be. I knew one member of our local Model T club who HATED horses. I asked him why, once, and he told me that a horse he was with nearly killed him. They were in a blizzard in the 1920's, riding for hours, and both at the end of their strength. He got off the horse to open a gate on their trip home, and when he tried to get back on the horse, the horse would not let him get on. He finally walked, leading the horse, and made it home, but he said he nearly froze to death. He could barely walk when he finally arrived home, turned the horse over to his dad, and told him the story, and said he was going the shoot the horse the next morning. His father talked him out of it the next morning, as a horse was too valuable to just kill. But he hated horses after that.

But on to the other story.

A woman in Pennsylvania was walking from town to her house in the country, and passing butcher stopped and asked her if she wanted a ride, so she climbed up to sit next to him. Somehow, in the next mile or so, the horse bolted, and the butcher lost the reins and fell out of the wagon. The woman fell backwards over the seat and landed in the cargo compartment in the back. The back was lined with sheet-metal to make it easy to clean out, and there were rows of meat-hooks on both sides and on the ceiling of this delivery wagon. The woman was tossed about, and wound up being hooked by many of the meat hooks, which did a lot of damage and then tore out of her body. Someone passing on another horse went after the runaway wagon, and when its horses tired somewhat, he grabbed the reins and pulled them up to a stop. They estimated it covered about a mile of country road. The injuries were described as "horrific" with most of the womans face torn off, missing one eye, and huge wounds and tears all over her body, and she was covered in blood. The man who stopped the wagon reportedly vomited by the side of the road. The men made preparations to turn the delivery wagon around and go back to town to the doctor, but the woman died within minutes.

I found the town she was from, and it is now disappeared, but I have been searching to try and find out where she was buried.
If I can find the news clipping again, I will copy it and post it.

In addition to these cheery stories, my mother told me my grandfather was kicked in the face by a horse sometime in the 1920's. This was actually recorded in the local town newspaper, and I found the clipping when I was cleaning out relatives mementoes. My mother said it nearly killed him, but he survived. He never liked horses either. He went out and bought a Packard, and that was all he drove for the rest of his life. He never had a horse again. My grandfather died when I was 5 or 6, so I hardly remember him, except as a huge remote man, sitting in an easy chair surrounded by a cloud of cigar smoke during our weekly visits. After he died, and my grandmother passed, we inherited the farm, and moved there in 1964. His running Packards were still in the garage, along with all the previous ones he had ever owned, lined up behind an outbuilding near some trees. He never got rid of any of his Packards. My parents had them all towed away one weekend, during their first efforts to clean the place up. It never meant anything to me until I got older and found out what a Packard car actually was. Oh, well.

Human/horse tragedies aside, it's tragic how much history and interesting and even valuable things are destroyed by clue-less people "cleaning up Dad's old junk".

I put a small block of wood in the handbrake slot to stop the car from going into high gear when I am in a parade just to be safe.
I also use the block when teaching someone to drive the T the first time.