MTFCA Forum

What Have You Done to Your Model T in February?

Went to Baton Rouge to the Motor Vehicles and got our 1926 license plate legal on Tuesday.
Mounted it on the car this morning.

https://www.mtfca.com/phpBB3/download/f ... &id=182746
Went for a 5 mile drive during our early February thaw for nuts and fun. Side curtains make for difficult entry and exit for us "bigger" people!

Worked on coils!
First time

Removed carpets, driver's seat, gas tank and starter. Determined to get it running Saturday.

Just made it my official farm truck:-)

Nice. The T truck that never was, but should have been. Cracker box.

Got the rear wheels for my 1912 painted Midnite Blue. That sure is a dark blue! Now to get the front wheels out of the paint shop and mount some tires. The wheels were rebuilt by Stutzman, and looked beautiful in natural finish. I was tempted to finish them as "natural" but decided to paint them as original. (Maybe they'll start calling me "Original Jones.")

speedytinc wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 09, 2024 8:27 am

Nice. The T truck that never was, but should have been. Cracker box.

Yeah and it'll go faster than 18 mph too!!

Distagon2 wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 09, 2024 8:43 am

Got the rear wheels for my 1912 painted Midnite Blue. That sure is a dark blue! Now to get the front wheels out of the paint shop and mount some tires. The wheels were rebuilt by Stutzman, and looked beautiful in natural finish. I was tempted to finish them as "natural" but decided to paint them as original. (Maybe they'll start calling me "Original Jones.")

Hey Original Jones! Yep those are gorgeous wheels and indeed "dark, all but black, blue"! Fit right in with the '11-'13 dark blue original paint color. Gonna look great on that '12 of yours. Stutzman does a heckuva job on wheels for sure. What kind/brand of paint did you use may I ask?

Tim, we used PPG Omni 2K urethane enamel. Paint code DB904, aka "Dark Blue" as used on 1985 Mercedes Benz. It is really a rich, dark color. Sometimes it looks a bit blue and to the casual observer looks black depending on what the lighting is. My painter loves that color and decided to paint his hot rod Model A roadster that color. Sealed the wood first with a two part epoxy sealant, then primer/sealer, then topcoat. Lots of work, those wood wheels.

Thanks O.J.!

Continuing with the 26 Tudor pickup conversion. Working on forming cab corners using metal salvaged from the back half that was cut off.
Bryant

Your pickup is looking good, Bryant. Don't feel bad about "repurposing" that Tudor-you are surely not the first to do something like that, and it allows it to live on as a cool pickup.

Thanks Greg! They did it way back then so I feel like it’s got a period correctness to it.
And Steve I love that TT pickup it looks great!
Bryant

Spotted to the lift to start pre season service. Will likely tackle the top replacement when it warms up a bit.

I balanced the front wheels on my 1923 Touring using duck decoy lead strip anchors.

John,
How did you attach the balancing weight to the wheels.

Art Mirtes

After setting for a few months, the weather was nice, so I decided to get the coupe out for a drive. I set the throttle and spark, turned the mixture a quarter turn to richen the mixture. I pulled the choke and then turned the switch to battery. It fired right up without touching the crank or the starter! So, off we went on short drive!

I started with just going to check u joint. Ended up replacing both axles, drive shaft, u joint, and some bearings.[image]

Be careful under that car being held up with a 4 X 4. It will hopefully be fine, but....be careful.

I agree with Gregory except I think the board in question is a 2X4 not a 4X4. My calculations indicate the stress on the board is about 2200 psi. Wood like this usually has a breaking strength slightly higher than this. However the safe working stress fkr this board is most likely about 1400 psi. I like to keep the stress under 1000 psiwhen using wood if my life depends on it.

The other issue is the orientation of the concrete blocks. They are stronger when placed the way they are normally layed in a structure.

Another thing is the wooden board laying on the concrete block. Never set steel directly on a concrete block because of stress concentration. Use a board directly on the block as shown in the picture

Art Mirtes

Yes it's definitely a 4x4. This is how I've done 4 out of 5 cars now, one being believe it or not just "stacking up" cement blocks way up under the frame just ahead of where the rear radius rods angle back. Had no room along the sides of the car for the 4x4. This method I really would not recommend as compared to what's in Jeff's picture. (I orchestrated this arrangement with him). I would imagine there's no more than 400 lbs. weight from each frame on that 4x4. The pic gives it an inaccurate look, it's far more straighter in person! Remember, half the weight of that 1400 lb. car is up front on the 2 front wheels. Yes, sitting on the jackstands looks scary but trust me it's sitting there solid as a rock. I admit I don't know how we screwed up and set the driver side block on the wrong facing, but thankfully it's one of those old blocks with real thick dense concrete plus the wood plank helps distribute the load. The other block that you can't see is facing such as would be under block construction. We might've gotten in a hurry or just didn't pay attention.

A 4x4 changes the analysis. The stress level drops to 1100 psi,. To calculate accurately, the assumptions would need to be replaced with measurements.

Art Mirtes

Finally got her back on all four wheels. Thank you Tim Wrenn for all your help and knowledge! Couldn’t have done it without you.

Sorry,
No model T job this month.
We were, and still are, in Mauritius for scuba diving.
Back home at the end February.

Just enjoy.
Andre
Belgium.

My handbrake quadrant on my 22 Touring RHD had worn out so much that the handbrake would not hold and neutral was very iffy.

So, after much thought I decided that grinding out the rivet heads so close to the fuel tank and carby (it is a RHD) was not acceptable.

I undid the running board bolts and propped up the board still attached tot he valance, it was that flexible.

With my son's help I centrepunched the four rivets and drilled them out, freeing the old quadrant. It is an Australian body and the wood surrounded the metal but I was able to prise it out.

The new (RHD) quadrant went in with a little persuasion and four 7mm bolts fitted exactly. I needed to remove the exhaust pipe to install the nuts and lock washers.

It's all back together now and working perfectly.

Well, I have a Ford in a Ford right now.

Nice looking wheels, Greg. I know how much work is involved sealing, priming, topcoating, cut and color sanding and finally buffing out. Takes forever but the result is worth it. When you mount the tubes and tires, mount them from the inside of the wheels. You'll invariably have scratches to touch up and nothing will show on the outside. Plenty of methods to try when mounting. I tried them all and still suffered scratching the paint. Thank heavens I got pretty good at touch up!

Re-restored my 1919 touring first car ibought when i was 25 have had it for 45 years am also finishing up my 1926 fordor

Last week helped a fellow T'er with a troublesome Vaporizer( I know, folks really like 'em) , but I tried without success to get the Ford to idle. Would run full out, but stumble and rough when throttled down.
Did change out the gaskets, thinking intake leaks, by spraying some starter fluid the engine picked up. But to no effect with new gaskets and some sealer too.


So today, back over to his place and Fred removed that Vaporizer and we installed a new exhaust manifold and a rebuilt Corey Walker NH.

The gas line needed work as the existing carb inlet nut was too small and had a compression fitting, so cut it off and installed the Ford style pack nut with a neoprene gasket. A bit of fitting up a new thru the block throttle rod to get full excursion, and the choke and stuff.
So with the carb needle valve set to 1.2 turns out from closed, we opened the gas valve, let gas flow to the bowl. Gave it a crankover with choke pulled out, and cranked and cranked til I told Fred to stop. Then asked him if the ignition was ON ! Oops.....forgot that in the excitement, since his '26 Pickup has a distrub-i-tor, knew I wouldn't be hearing a buzz from coils. Well that did it. Switch on and one touch of the starter button and the T roared to life, idled down great and runs strong now. Fun Day

Rounded out the day after doing carb work with a fun ride in my '24 Touring.

Neighbor has had a young man visiting from Denmark, took him around FL, to Orlando, Universal studios, then to Kennedy Space Center, giving him all the typical US things to do and see. So of course I invited Jonas to get a ride in Henry's Car......he got a kick out of it too.

Neighbor Rick Scott, is a photo shop guru, so he did this B/W image of us in the T, Jonas is a very lanky and tall Dane, so his head stuck up well above the windscreen!

Returned Jonas back safe and sound to his friends, getting a thanks from another neighbor Cindy.

I put the ‘26 Touring in the trailer ,,so I could work on the ‘29….
I’m waiting for warm weather to install the top on the restored bows ..

Hooray! I found and just received two excellent front fenders for my 1916 Touring. No rot, no dents just media blast and finish. This saves me so much work trying to save the originals. Thanks for the support!
Campbell Tellman II
1916 Ford Touring
Beaufort, NC

When I bought the 1914 touring, it was equipped with a TOQUET carburator. Doing some research I found out that they where marketed in the early 20's, so it wouldprobably fit better on my 1921 Roadster pick-up, which is the one I drive the most.
Today I swapped the Holley NH with the TOQUET and did a quick spin around the blocks to test it at it ran flawlesly. My biggest expectation was the idle, that was very smooth on the 1914 due to the fact that the TOQUET have some sort of idle system. Even that test was passed. When it becomes a little warmer a more thorough test and finetuning will be made.

Saturday the 24th, drove the Model T for the first time that it's been driven in decades, only 14 feet forward but it moved on it's own power.
Sunday I tried to move it out of the garage (door now open) but the starter switch died.

I brought my new to me 1910 touring to my garage. It's been stored since 1985 and in the same family since 1955.