Which is probably why we love these old cars in the first bloody place, driving as much as tinkering with them. Today George Clipner came out my way for breakfast at local cafe, something we do sort of regularly. And typically afterward we go to my place to jabber about and play with my T. Today he brought me 3 gallons of multi-viscosity oil, so we decided to go ahead and do an oil change.
George noticed the last time he was out, that the engine had an intermittent miss. I thought it was probably more than likely some left over gunk in my gas tank (that I didn't quite get fully removed), that occasionally gets itself into the fuel line. But George thought it was something in the timing. He noticed (from his last visit) that when I went to start the car that I advanced the spark about an inch and thought that was too much.
After trying several kinds of testing apparatus (none of which worked for static testing) we finally settled on the old "short out the number one spark plug wire on the head bolt" method. First we pulled all the plugs and found that for some reason the gaps were all wrong (.024, I cant figure how I gapped them that small), so I cleaned the plugs and reset them to .032. Next turned the crank until we got number 1 to just a wee bit past top dead center. I'm using a distributor on my car so I disconnected the front control rod and manually rotated the distributor cap until we got a spark (trying not to get zapped in the process), then we bent the control rods to fit its position.
Got everything all reconnected and started the car. Man, did it run nice! She sat there and idled just as smooth as can be, no missing, no coughing, no sputtering, nothing...she just sat there ticking away like a sewing machine, and like all true T Model nuts (and I knew George was dying to try out my new upholstery, which by the way, got the George Clipner Seal of Approval for being the comfiest he'd ever sat in) we hopped in the car and took her for a wee spin banging on the klaxon every now and then to get more than a few smiles from the people we passed. We drove all around my complex (don't have the registration tags, so no city streets for me) we ran out of gas just as we pulled into my driveway.
After pushing the car back into the garage, we noticed the ammeter stuck over on "Discharge", it had shorted out. I had recently repaired it, but I guess there really is no way to fix one of those. For now I'll just run with a Model A ammeter until I get an new one from Fun Projects.
Even though we both got a little gooey, zapped more than a few times adjusting the spark, maybe a little sunburned too and a real good workout pushing the car up the drive into the garage, it was all fun and a really great day. Thanks George, for all you help!
Next you need to get it street legal and go for a little spin to Lompoc or Amboy.
Steve, what ti the trick to "gaping" the X plugs? I tried the various tools and had no luck. A pair of needle-nose seem to work, but raise the tab as it gets further from the electrode!....Chip
Should say "what is" !
Bend up to widen the gap, down to narrow it. The idea of the electrode sloping down from the post is for liquid that may collect on it to run down away from the gap and not interfere with the spark.
Thanks Steve.
Lol, I hear you there Steve, I'd like nothing better than to jump in the car and take a nice long trip to one of those places (my wife afraid of those hills out that way) or maybe even to Kansas (not a lot of hills there).
My wife, just doesn't seem to have the confidence I do that my car can go any kind of distance at all (I think she sees it as some over grown kiddy car or something). She thinks that going to the corner store or into town is about as far as my old girl would travel. I've told her repeatably on more than one occasion that this car was designed to travel (built with that in mind actually), maybe that's why she keeps insisting we cant afford to license the car, she's afraid I'll actually run off and do it. I don't know what her problem is, I'd let her come along (hehehe, **insert evil grin here**), in fact I'd insist on it.
;{)
Martin, What a neat touring you have and I hope you wife someday finds out your car will go many more than a hundred miles in a day if you let her.
Show her some of the videos of the Montana 500!
Gene in HB
Martin, What a neat car you have, I hope someday you wife will find out your car will go many more miles than hundred in a day if you let her!
Let her watch some of the Montana 500 videos.
Gene in HB
Martin, tell her the wife and I go 75-100 miles each way, just for a car show!!!!
We go 50 miles round trip to get lunch. And that's if there are no detours. There are always detours.
Tell her she should go with you in case you need somebody to help push.