MTFCA Forum

This weekend is our annual MTFCA run, this year centred on the famous Barossa Valley wine growing area. These cars were at the start and we picked up more along the route. All is going well, including the weather. Allan from down under.

I always like seeing the variety of cars in the down under. Thanks for sharing.

Andy

Two more T's joined us along the way, the cream 27 tourer and the blue 25 coupe on the far end of this line-up. These are just like US T's, but the tourer was built on the new Ford factory in Geelong. It has a wooden base frsme still, like all the previous cars, but the panelwork is just like yours Allan from down under.

Just curious… Is there a wheelwright on the island continent or do you have to send to the US for wood felloe rebuilds ?

It’s good to see a Model T in good unrestored condition too. The 25 is still pretty good shape.

We have two wheel wrights that I know of George. One used to use only spotted gum, a strong eucalypt with similar load capabilities to hickory. It is deep red/brown in colour and really needs to be painted to suit a model T. Now one can do the job with imported hickory.

I post my felloes, two at a time, to New Zealand for re-spoking in Hickory. They come back to me in the same boxes in which I mail them to him. They are fully finished, with the Canadian double taper on the hub end of the spokes. The respoked wheels are mounted in a big old lathe and the hub hole is bored after the rebuild, so they run really true. The guy is in his eighties now, so his expertise looks like being lost to us with no-one to follow on. A Kiwi friend took me to visit him at his workshop and farm on one trip to New Zealand. Watching him make wooden felloes for early wheels was fascinating. I asked him why he was prepared to show me how it was all done? He paused for a moment and said, "it's taken me 20 years to work out all the finer points. I don't reckon you have that long to go." Cheeky bugger!

Allan from down under.

John, that's my Henrietta.

Allan from down under.