We had quite a nice day in the Pacific NW today so I took the opportunity to do a little hill climbing and descending. The hill on the back side of Burnt Ridge is about 10 miles from home. The hill is a straight run with a T intersection at the bottom. It is not a good place to lose your brakes, about 20 years ago worker was driving one of my brother's tractors down and tried to shift down at the top. He killed the engine and lost all brakes. It zoomed down the hill and straight through the T and about 100 yards into the woods before hitting a large stump and over turning. No one was hurt and we winched the tractor out and put it back in service. I had better luck today with my T.
At the top:
Starting down:
Going down:
Near the bottom:
Comming back up in low Ford and low Ruckstell (3:1 gears). Probably could make it up in low Ford and high Ruckstell:
Back at the top, Mt St Helens in background:
On the way home:
Anyway a pleasant little drive before winter.
Jim
I recently found that the Lincoln Highway in Pennsylvania has several hills like that.
Great pics Jim!
I'm gonna have to go find that hill.
Wow, what nice roads and scenery. Drive safe.
Beautiful scenery. Going down in the same gear as going up......good practice, IMHO.
Will a Model T in the Pacific NorthWest break down or head back to its garage if it sees its shadow?
rdr
refugee Oregon native
Beautiful pics, beautiful scenery Jim. Good thing Mt. St. Helens is waaaay off in the distance! Woulda been spectacular to view from where you are when it blew.
Jim,
"Low gear Ford, Low Gear Ruckstell"
Any idea as to about what speed you were going and about what RPMs the engine was doing when you were descending?
I have no Ruckstell, and on a couple of hills I've gone down in Ford Low, I've also used some brake as I feared the engine was over-speeding..
Without speedometers and Tachometers, I realize these are just guesses...wondering what your guess would be?
Thanks,
Dave
Dave, here's an older post with some calculations by Seth Harbuck: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/29/20911.html
"Numbers from top (High-High) using 3.63:1
24.6 mph/1000 - direct/direct
16.2 mph/1000 - Rux under (0.66)/Ford direct
8.9 mph/1000 - Rux direct/Ford low
5.8 mph/1000 - We call this Granny down here
6.2 mph/1000 - Rux direct/Ford reverse
4.0 mph/1000 - Back up Granny ?"
So with low Ford, low ruckstell and revving 2000 rpm, the car would race up the hill at about 12 mph.
But with such a steep hill the rpm maybe dips to the torque max at 1000 - 1200 rpm, resulting in 6-7 mph?
Dave D.,
I have no speedo and forgot my GPS but I would guess that going down the engine was not over 1500 rpm. Maybe someday I should do that. I do know that going up on other steep hills I have measured 11 mph in low and Ruckstell over.
One thing that amazes me is the amount of compression braking I get with the spark fully retarded compared to a more advanced position. It acts and sounds just like a jake brake on a truck.
I wonder if I set my timing at 15° ATDC rather then just past TDC if I would get even better compression braking??
With the original T brakes being not much better then nothing I see a real advantage to being able to manually retard the spark for descending hills and just slowing down. It also follows that when using any non-original ignition system (no names here) that the operator can not manually retard the spark, then they are missing out on a very useful feature of the original ignition system. And, this chart should look like:
Tim,
The mountain is about 30 miles and it was a real show when it blew its top.
Jim
Jim, I also noticed that recently on the hills of Indiana. I retarded the spark going downhill and rarely touched the brake. It does act and sound like a Jake Brake.
Roger & Jim,
Thank you.
Dave