I thought some of you might enjoy seeing this and may share some pictures of other T parts found buried.
Last fall our local water utility moved my water line from the old 4" main to a new 10" main. That required a trench to be dug about 12' across the front of my property.
This past spring after tired of waiting for the utility to tidy up the dig, I took my tractor and loader down to clean things up a bit.
I was tossing rocks into the loader bucket when I found this baseball sized glob of Indiana clay. I first thought it was a iron pipe cap, but after knocking some of the dirt off, it revealed it's true identity.
You can imagine my surprise when I saw that it was a model T roller timer cover. No telling how long it had been buried there.
Here it is still in it's "as found" condition.
What are the odds? That is really cool though!
Hi Kim - Nice find!
Thread drift - Just wondering, could you update us on the 1910 Touring at the museum that you "adopted"?
Thanks, Keith
I will relate one that happened to a friend of mine on the way to Hershey. This friend went to Hershey with me for a few years. He was also a Civil War relic hunter. He would use the trip to hunt in Va on the way there and back. One trip he stopped in Va to hunt and told me he would meet up with me at the swap spaces. When he got there late that night he told us what he found. He was hunting in a cornfield and got a long thin signal. He was hoping for sword, it was a T rear radius rod. Dan
Several years ago, someone on here posted a link to an E-bay auction that was selling an unearthed piece of a "Bayonet". It was obvious to everyone here, it was the piece of a timer roller that goes on the camshaft. The roller, roller arm and spring were missing. I think someone let the seller know what he had.
I was relic hunting a old home site along the drive way/parking area. Found a couple of spark plugs and Schrader tire valve covers. Springs,Square nuts etc.
Helped a friend (years ago)get some Studebaker parts form an old farm near Denver and tripped over a knob sticking out of the ground and dug up a warford 3 speed.
Bob
In my years spent metal detecting I have found 2 model T hubcaps. About a year ago I dug up a low fin radiator cap from a T. I didn't know what it was til I saw a picture of it. I guess someone was telling me to get a model T which I did in November !
Randy, Parsippany, NJ
The sad news is that almost all that stuff that has been in the ground for years is junk, not useable unless for wall art in your garage.
It's hard to see where any of the parts that were dug up and pictured in the Before photo, were able to be used to restore this Model T to the after photo, but supposedly, it is the same car. I think most of us are familiar with the story of the Model T that was buried by the owner in 1936 when no one but his son in law wanted it, who wanted to put a sportier body on it. The old man couldn't bear the thought of that so he buried it.
www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/179374/232945.html?1315080760. Jim Patrick
BEFORE
AFTER
Front axle, springs maybe the frame could have been restored. But the rest? Not sure about that.
My car is unusable junk?
Jim, it would be interesting to see exactly what parts were used if any. I see the after picture but that is not believing it.
It did make a darn good news article for the believers.
Kep, your car is an incredible accomplishment.
Kep,your car is fine.
My neighbor found a cracked low style T cylinder head and some early teens top irons buried under the curb/sidewalk area when they re-did the street here a couple years ago. There also has been rumored to be several teens-era cars buried in the park there.
One of the highways in central Wisconsin where it goes across a large marshy area is entirely built on top of teens and twenties cars. The son of the man who owned the car dealer in that area told me that he remembers cars, some with all the "fancy brasswork" on them being hauled into the dealership daily for a whole summer and they were all hauled out to where the new state road was going thru the marsh, pushed into the ditch for the road bed and then flattened by a Buffalo-Springfield steamroller to stabilize the marsh. He said there are Hundreds of flattened cars under that road...
RT.30 near West Point in Va. Model T frames were used for the road bed over the sandy areas.
Some friends were relic hunting in Chester Va. and walked over a old paved road. One gets a reading digs thru the pavement and finds a US Buckle...17 more buckles came out from under that road that afternoon.
Ok im OT but its a good story.
I found this brake handle in a chunk of concrete when they were tearing down my Grandfathers garage. After straightening and plating it I use it on my Speedster. They had used a lot of scrap iron for re-bar but I couldn't find any other T parts.
Rich
Made a nice job of that brake handle.
When I was 4 or 5 years old my dad was having the parking lot of his boat shop repaved, they had ripped up the old pavement and I was out playing I remember running my hands through the freshly over turn dirt and hitting something hard and pulling out a model T magneto magnet, I still have it!