Fixing my mistakes

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Model T Ford Forum: Forum 2012: Fixing my mistakes
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Terry Horlick on Sunday, May 06, 2012 - 01:18 pm:

When I got Rusty it was just a pile of junk out of Virginia City, Nevada. Since he had no wheels one of the first things I did was put him on a set of patina matching wire wheels. After all, the book says wires were what came on it new.

After a bit I uncovered the L.A.F.D. (Los Angeles City Fire Department) logo on both doors. This lead to the discovery of the original owner and a photo of the car in a line-up in 1927.

Low and behold the car was in a fleet purchase so it had demountable wood wheels and a 1927 running board mount spare. These are parts which are a little harder to find than the wire wheels were.

So this weekend the wrong wired wheels came off and Rusty got closer to the way he started out.

Sometimes we make errors in setting up our cars the way we think they were (or should be), even if it takes 15 years (like I did) we can continue to move closer to original if we wish.


Inspection of fire vehicles and personnel at station on Mulholland Drive in the San Fernando Valley, CA. ca. 1927


The station was near the West end of Mulholland Drive as shown on this map.

TH


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Erich Bruckner, Vancouver, WA on Sunday, May 06, 2012 - 01:28 pm:

Looking good. Who says rust isn't beautiful?


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Bob Gruber- Spanaway, Wash. on Sunday, May 06, 2012 - 01:33 pm:

It's cool to have that much history of your car.
I can trace one of mine back to the 30s when it was in a junk yard and a couple more to the 50s but that's it.
Glad it was rescued.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Bernard, San Buenaventura, Calif on Sunday, May 06, 2012 - 02:14 pm:

I think the car would look equally good with wood or spoke wheels. The only mistake I'm glad you didn't make is painting it. What a wonderful Model T!


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Terry Horlick on Sunday, May 06, 2012 - 07:52 pm:

Bernard, every couple of years the L.A.F.D. museum contacts me to offer to accept a donation of Rusty.

Rusty is the only Mountain Patrol Vehicle extant. They started with T's (possibly with this batch of T's) and then replaced them with model A pickups.

L.A.F.D. used pickups as "plug buckets": utility vehicles to run errands for fire stations. Plug buckets and all other L.A.F.D. vehicles were painted red and had logos and station numbers on the doors. The Mountain Patrol Vehicles were purchased as a fleet and left commercial green with black running gear and radiator shell. The doors got yellow "L.A.F.D." and the radiator shell and either the seat back or tail gate (not sure which) got painted with a yellow "FIRE".

The logo you can see on the door came to light after rubbing down the splash of primer on the doors with 1000 grit emory paper. That primer is the only paint on the car... it seems they painted out the logo when they sold it off... probably in 1928 or 1929 when they switched to the ultra-modern model A.



If you get close enough to the car you can detect a few flecks of Ford Commercial Green around the yellow logo. I guess the L.A.F.D. used better paint than Henry. The only Ford paint left is what was protected by both the primer cover-up AND the yellow fire dept paint!

TH


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By M Philpott on Monday, May 07, 2012 - 10:41 am:

The idea of getting an original picture of our T's on the day it was first purchased is rare. Great job!


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Charlie B actually in Toms River N.J. on Monday, May 07, 2012 - 11:01 am:

I've worked for both city and federal agencies and painting over logo's was commonly done when selling off a fleet. Of course today most are stick-ons and all you'll see it the remains of the outline after their peeled off. The Post Office for instance had white & blue paint with a red stripe dividing the colors. (1970's). They
would paint the red stripe either white or blue when selling off. What the heck that was supposed to prove is beyond me.


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