Peter and Sally made it to Paso Robles last night! Peter and a few of of his new friends will be stopping in to the Brassworks this morning for a Radiator repair. I'll post some pictures of the event. Peter and Sally lost a headlight somewhere north of San Francisco (Lamp bucket broke loose from the stalk - more old car metal fatigue!) so now the KampKar has a new name... "One eyed Jack"!

Their plan is to head south on the Coast Highway to Los Angeles this afternoon.Keep an eye out for them.

Peter and Sally are on their way to Santa Barbara, CA. Their stop at Brassworks was both fascinating and educational!

The owner, Lee Chamberlain and his crew treated Peter and Sally as the VIP's they are! They jumped right to work removing the radiator and making repairs.

Lees "artisans" gave several of us T guys the full tour of their plant while walking us through the careful steps it takes to build a Brass era radiator. Most of the tooling was built by Brassworks, and each step is oriented towards building a modern, quality radiator to strict Ford standards.

Authenticity and quality appear to be their only objective. As Lee explained to me. His greatest challenge is to faithfully replicate a 100 year old design in the 21'st century that will satisfy the most critical end user!

Each Radiator is virtually hand built, taking up to two days to complete.

Anyone who thinks American quality is gone should take this tour!

Lee personally examined the repair done to Peter's radiator and assisted Peter in carefully reinstalling the radiator before letting them go!

God speed to these splendid Aussies in their travels!
John

Thursday Evening I was Driving home from work, and WAY up ahead I saw a Green "ambulance Box' on what looked like a Model A Body going VERY Slow..

The Pannic part of what I was Seeing is, I was Following 2 Semis, and the #2 Semi could not see up ahead of the First.. I saw what was about to happen .. the Leading Semi had time to pull over to the Left lane and Pass The Slower Veh.. But the Trailing Semi was going to not Have Room the make a Quick Left Lane Change, as the Cars of the Left lane Behind us were going to Cut him off Passing..
I was able to run Traffic break.. so the #2 <jackass> Semi would have a Place to go..

I had no Clue that the Green Box was 'KampKar'.. Wasnt till I passed him that I saw it was a T..


Last Year I was about 10 Minutes behind the Accident of the '12 that got rearended by the Semi above Greenfield, on Hwy 101.. Did not want it to happen Again..

Glad the Radiator and Light or the Only Problems..

Cap Weir

Well the trip is virtually over we are in Northridge in LA this morning after a night in Ventura with friends we met in Oregon on our way home.

Have done neally 6000 miles this time ( 4000 to Richmond in 2008)

Problems. (in no particular order)
4 tube failures at the valve ( covered that elsewhere)

One blow out ( with a big BANG) and the resulting damaged tire which resulted in needing a new tire.

Rough roads loosening neally everything at some stage even the dial in the motormetor which shook around to 3 o'clock.

An oil leak from the starter motor which got worse ( reasoned being in the museum it was probable dried out seals) but when removed found to be a hole in the square mounting plate at 6 0'clock which allowed the oil to run straight out the drain hole.

As mentioned the side panels on the the radiator came loose (found in Seattle) but it didn't leak and is now fixed ready to be shipped back home. Thanks Lee and the guys at Brassworks. Lucky they were on our route home.

Except for the tire replacement which had us over 200 miles from anywhere or anyone. There was no delays which messed up our schedule. Though it was loose as its always possibe for things to go wrong.

AS mentioned before lots of rough roads but one only finds out about them when you are on them.

We did freeways a few times, often the best and easiest way to get from A to B. Never a problem with other traffic except when you are in a city and the traffic is heavy as you often are in the right hand lane which can be an exit lane only. Some people don't want to let you get left.

2 lane roads often the worst way to go, they can be windy and have no where for you to get off to allow people to pass. Still they are the most interesting as they generally go through small towns and interesting places, freeways usually are just boring.

Having gone basically north west we mainly got cool to cold weather instead of the heatwave we got in 2008 going east across to Richmond.

The Kamper will be packed up and taken to the dock in Long Beach next week. We Leave in 10 days for Australia.

I would like to thank everyone for the assistance, friendship, well wishes, accomodation, food and help. I'de name them all but sure as anything I would miss someone. You all know who you are and we hope to return in a few years to do some more Model T touring.

There were a lots more interesting things which I will mention later especially if they relate to some of the silly posts being put forward on the forum in the past 3 months.

Just one to finish off. I'm parked in a parking lot near an information point. A guy comes up and anounces that he used to have Model T's. He then asks where we have come from.

I tell him Richmond IN and he says "but how did you get over the Rockies, didn't you have to go up all the hills in reverse!!!!"

In 40 years I have never had to go up a hill anywhere in reverse, no wonder people get the wrong impression about the abilities of the T.

Great stories Peter, would love to hear more, is a book on the way/to be written about your travels ??
David.

That sounds like a fantastic trip Peter. The KampKar is such a neat T. I look forward to more anecdotes.

Did anyone notice Peter did not mention any ignition coil problems???
I did. Big Grin
Ron the Coilman

Cap, Well done! That's the no. county spirit! No doubt the good Lord put you there!

Ron, I definitely would have taken those coils off Peter's hands if I could have. His T ran sweet and started on the first pull! So much for electronic ignitions!
- John

I would think at least one picture could have been posted on this thread of the car and its occupants.

Here You go Aaron . . .

http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/179374/222343.html
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/179374/222830.html
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/179374/226153.html

I think Peter and Sally have planned this trip to avoid winter... They spend the summer in the US, and head back to Oz in time for spring!

Peter and Sally with Lee... owner of brassworks about to head south to Los Angeles.

No trouble with the coils or the tip top Anderson timer. Nothing better than a set of good coils that run off the maggie, no flat battery just keeps on working.

Only have a few minutes here now so a couple of things.

Did not need to adjust the Rocky Mountain brakes the whole trip.

Forgot to mention the loss of the head light before.

It just dropped off on the road somewhere on hwy 1 north of San Fransisco. Didn't notice it was gone until we stopped that night. Can see why the later lights had the plate and rivits to the bucket the weld was cracked two thirds around the post where the bucket joins. Anyone have a lead on a 1915 brass rim headlight single post?

Noticed a forum posting asking what to take on a long trip. What do you take? I never seem to have that bit that one needs its always something else so I take virtually nothing. Spare tubes definately, maybe a spare coil and commutator basic tools,jack and tire irons, rubber hanmmer,tire pump ( one that will pump the tire to 60psi,) tire gauge, headlight globes, some wire to tie things up, spare oil. A tube of silicon ( I bought it on the trip in 2008 but used it 3 times to glue things back in place) including the dial in the motor meter which kept turning around behind the glass. The rule is if you take an axle it will be the tailshaft that breaks, if you take a set of bands the rear hand break shoes will let you down.

Best advice I can give anyone make sure you know everything on your car is in proper working condition.

should have mentioned!!!

I did have a distributor on the Kamper for part of the trip.

The Anderson Timer I had on was not working properly, so I changed it for a distributor I had been carrying which was given to me on the trip in 2008.

I was relieved of the old Anderson which I found out from Mark from Tip Top Timers was a cheap version of the original sold during the original period as a trial for prospective buyers. I found it at Hershey years ago)

Armed with a new Timer I replaced the distributor with it so the last part of the trip was a breeze.

AND yesterday on a tour with the San Fernando Model T club I didn't have enough gas to climb up the steep hill we went on. Didn't go up backwards (road was too windy to do so) but a club member passing in his pickup had 5 galls in the back so we purchased it and continued on.
One should never make rash statements !!!