MTFCA Forum

The Orange county club does a tour every month. This month's tour was to a Bass Pro Shop.
An 80 mile round trip thru hill & dale on back roads as much as possible.
On the way out, I noticed a fellow riding his brake a bit to much.
@ the first stop we discussed retarding spark & throttle levers to minimize brake usage.
This becomes important later.

About 10 miles from home we are going down a long down hill toward a busy intersection.
This fellow is using the retard method quite well, slowing his T, until we need a full stop.
He goes to use the brake pedal. It wont depress enough. The pedal lost 75% of its travel.
Fortunately he didnt panic & pulled the parking brake, stopping in time to avoid contact with the lead T.
Lined parking brakes saved the day.

Radio chatter informs us, we need to turn off into a parking lot to fix the situation.
Leader asks "Someone lost their brakes. Who?" We replied "THE GUY BEHIND YOU"

In the lot some head scratching. Pedal doesnt move enough to activate the External brakes.
Out goes the mat & floor boards. We find a chunk of wood about 2"x3" tightly wedged between the pedal & hogs head.

A piece of the middle floor board between the brake & reverse slots fell off & landed behind the brake pedal.
Removed the wedge & brake pedal works as it should.
Luck & skillful driving saves the day.

One thing about these cars, you ALWAYS have to be prepared with thoughts of contingency ever present. It's not an issue of IF, only when.

Even with my Model A, with much better braking than a T, I have endured more than one pucker moment.

Good thing it all went well for ya'll.

Sounds scary for that driver...

I had a guy lose his clevis pin on his Model A brakes one day as he pulled into my driveway and barely missed ruining his prize winning car. I hope I can be as clear headed "when" something like that happens to me....

Another good example of learning and knowing how to drive a T as if it doesn’t have real brakes. And this time it really didn’t!

John kuehn wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 22, 2026 2:40 pm

Another good example of learning and knowing how to drive a T as if it doesn’t have real brakes. And this time it really didn’t!

Amen. Leave plenty of space between cars. The more space, the more time to react.

Why didn’t he lock low band onto low drum ? Would’ve been my 2nd choice after decelerating engine. But I’m pleased accident damage was averted.

Good driver skill for Model T safety, congratulations to the driver.

Ford even mentioned the hand brake lever in a Service Bulletin.

Or... the 'other' emergency panic stop emergency brake (assuming not a broke axle situation), stomping on all 3 pedals at once...
Risk to driveline, sure, but absence of other options, something...

Sometimes none of the usual panic stop methods work. We were on a long interstate tour some 2000miles from home when one participant lost all brakes on a steep descent from a lookout. He rode the car to a stop at the bottom, the only damage he reported was to his underwear.
All symptoms pointed to a broken rear axle, but there was no evidence of the wheel/ axle leaving the car. With a team of participants on the tools, we were part way into pulling the rear axle when I called a halt to proceedings. I was trying to get the back wheel pulled off one axle, and couldn't budge the hubcap. The outer wheel hub flange was hard up against the inner edge of the hubcap, and could come no
further. It was one of the thicker reproduction hubcaps, and it was holding the wheel in place. It turned out that the hub inner flange had broken around the hub and the wheel assembly was simply spinning on the hub. The result was just like broken axle, but because of the thick hubcap, the wheel did not leave the car. The only way we could get the hubcap off was to drive a screwdriver thtough it from the side so it acted like a T handle.
With a borrowed wheel from a local T owner, the car completed the tour, and the donor wheel was shipped back home.
Allan from down under.

Allan

Interesting, that rear wheel hub separated from the mounting plate. Same happened on a mountain tour in NC years ago.

Driver felt drive line skipping, we all thought the rear axle must have lost thrust washer or gear tooth, so out came the rear end.
Took it apart, found nothing. So late in the nite installed the axle back. When fitting the left rear wheel over the axle, did the culprit appear.

The wheel and hub turned, just a bit at a time, jerky like, the plate / hub forging was cracked, jagged like, so it held some, and turn some, but that was what caused the initial skipping....... Something else to check carefully when restoring a wheel hub!

Pulled axle apart found nothing wrong.
Back to the T with the axle, then found the problem when fitting the rear wheel

Not the same hub, (picture lifted from another forum post) but this shows what can happen to a worn hub, perhaps starts with a crack that propagates.