MTFCA Forum

What is best for the tires?

I will put my Lizzy on top of four support frames so all wheels are one inch above garage floor. This will for sure not be wrong.

Should I reduce tire pressure then? My tires have very minor cracks on their sides. Lower pressure will cause less stress to them. right?

Does some sort of care product for tire rubber exist? The cracks are very decent, but our car testing centers are permanently nervous when they see the finest cracks in tire walls. Well, a Model T is driving lots lower speed, but this is again and again a point of discussion.

I thought about using black shoe cream before approaching next time to fill up this minor cracks with it. Then they see only nice black rubber.

Such cracking is not unusual with the rubbish tyres on the market. I know of one set, installed just two years before and never driven, that failed a roadworthy inspection and had to be replaced. I would leave them fully inflated so they rest in their operational mode. If you reduce the pressure now and reinflate them later, the cracks are likely to open up more. Hit them with whatever tyre paint you can, with as many coats as needed, and hope for the best at inspection time.
The real answer may be a set of new Blockley tyres, specially developed to higher quality specifications, to overcome the supply of stuff not fit for purpose.

Allan from down under.

I would suggest lowering tire pressure to 20 PSI. A number of tire dressing products are available that might offer some protection and appearance improvement for the tires. Tires (and cars) do best stored in a cool, dark, dry place. I'd check tire pressure once a month and maintain as needed. I would not start the engine unless I meant to drive the car on the road for half an hour or more. I would also suggest driving the car for an hour or more on a mild day before putting it away for the winter. That will assure that the engine is free of moisture.

I don't think that "dry" storage is good for the Model T. Mine stay in unheated buildings because heated air is dry air, which causes shrinkage in wood wheels, the wooden body frames, dashboards if your car is that old, etc. My T came to me after a long winter stored in a heated garage in Columbus, Ohio. The wood wheels were loose, as in unsafe to use. An overnight swim in a $10 Walmart kiddie swimming pool fixed the problem, but lesson learned: avoid heated, dry, air.

No idea how bad Vienna winters might be. Here in the mountains of Western North Carolina our weather is such that there are always "drivable" days, even if requiring the raccoon fur coats, so no permanent storage is essential or employed.

rainer wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 18, 2021 3:50 am

What is best for the tires?

I will put my Lizzy on top of four support frames so all wheels are one inch above garage floor. This will for sure not be wrong.

Should I reduce tire pressure then? My tires have very minor cracks on their sides. Lower pressure will cause less stress to them. right?

Does some sort of care product for tire rubber exist? The cracks are very decent, but our car testing centers are permanently nervous when they see the finest cracks in tire walls. Well, a Model T is driving lots lower speed, but this is again and again a point of discussion.

I thought about using black shoe cream before approaching next time to fill up this minor cracks with it. Then they see only nice black rubber.

There used to be a product called vinal top wax. It worked very well to seal & protect tires. Mop & glo liquid floor wax appears , feel & acts like the old vinal top wax. This Is what I swear by.

First year, I put the car up on jack stands.
Second year and thereafter, I just leave 'em be. Occasionally I'll move the car off "the spot" to give
that spot "a break". Basically not needed. Never had any issues. Sometimes we just worry too much.
God forbid there's a fire in the house garage where one of my cars spends the winter, if it's on stands, well, it's toast.
If it's on it's tires, we have a fair chance of shoving it out of the garage before it's lost. Yep, now I'M worrying too much!!

I agree with Allen; I would not lower the tire pressure. I also don't see the need to place the car on jack stands. If the T is truly going to sit for the winter, I would remove the spark plugs and put a couple of Teaspoons of oil into each cylinder and turn the engine over a couple of revolutions with the hand crank. Reinstall the sparkplugs finger-tight. If you find yourself with nothing better to do, once a month turn the engine over a couple of revolutions with the spark plugs in place. One other item that I would consider is the fuel system. I don't know whether you have to run gasoline with ethanol added, but if you do, I'd drain the tank and use the gasoline in your modern car. If you have pure gasoline in your T's tank, I'd leave it alone.

I never "put my car up" for winter!
Too many opportunities to miss.

: ^ )

Keith

Loftfield wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 18, 2021 7:42 am

I don't think that "dry" storage is good for the Model T. Mine stay in unheated buildings because heated air is dry air, which causes shrinkage in wood wheels, the wooden body frames, dashboards if your car is that old, etc. My T came to me after a long winter stored in a heated garage in Columbus, Ohio. The wood wheels were loose, as in unsafe to use. An overnight swim in a $10 Walmart kiddie swimming pool fixed the problem, but lesson learned: avoid heated, dry, air.

No idea how bad Vienna winters might be. Here in the mountains of Western North Carolina our weather is such that there are always "drivable" days, even if requiring the raccoon fur coats, so no permanent storage is essential or employed.

Well, my garage is thermal insulated, but not heated, so the inside temperature is between +5 °C (at outdoor temps of -12°C, but this is only a few days at most) and +14 °C when outdoor temp is at +5°C. All temperatures in Celsius, not Fahrenheit.

In first winter I was afraid that the wooden spokes could shrink and become loose, but nothing happened. The wheels remained rock solid. So I do not expect that this will change in future.


Because my Lizzy has no speedometer (and I don't want to add one because they display in mph which is quite useless in Europe) but I must have a speed measurement/display (by law), I will drill a little blind hole into one spoke of left-rear wheel from transmission/rear side, diameter 1/4" by depth 3/4", a little bit outside of my AC brake diameter. Then I will glue in a strong neodymium magnet stick with black colored Epoxy. So it will be invisible and the spoke cannot get humidity inside. This magnet will be used by my tachometer. I will do this at a rear wheel because there I can hide the cable much better than at front.

Any concern on this?

I drive mine over the winter if the roads are clear, but if I did have to store it in my heated garage, I would drain the carburetor, put gas stabilizer in the gas tank, top off the gas level, leave the tire pressure alone and put the car up on my tire savers. They can be placed under the axle as shown, or under the hubs just inboard of the hub caps.

Moisture is destructive. In this area, relative humidity can go from 10% to 100% overnight. In an uninsulated, unheated building in fall, winter, and early spring, items like tools and cars and electric motors will get cold during a cool, dry period, and when the next warm, moist front comes in, they will become soaking wet, inside and out. Uninsulated sheet metal roofs will get wet on the underside and drip water, metal framing will drip water, and cold concrete floors will become wet. I have not had this issue with a fairly tight, insulated metal building. If an object, especially a metal object, is at a temperature below the current dew point, it will get wet from condensation. Most heaters do not dry out air, and many actually add moisture. Any unvented, open flame combustion heater will add moisture to the air. My barn is too tight to use any open flame heater in it. The humidity becomes so high that it's like walking into a sauna. I solved the problem by going to a gas heat HVAC unit that does not emit any combustion products into the building. That also offers some limited protection from fire or explosion if combustible fumes are present in the building. Ideally, a car with wooden structural parts would be assembled with kiln-dried dry parts in a very dry environment. That way, in most cases, ambient moisture is such that it tends to tighten joints. But if you build your car in Houston and drive it to Yuma, it will loosen up. When you get back to Houston, it will tighten up again.That's one drawback to wood construction. In my opinion, loose beats rotten, and a few squeaks in dry weather beats rust, mold, and wood rot.

It might be a good idea to dry out a T with wooden body framing and wood wheels, then tighten everything up while it's dry.

CudaMan,
I will do almost the same as you do with your tire savers, but I will use such supports instead:
They provide a better stand (important because my grandson is often around Lizzy). So he can get in/out Lizzy without any risk.
In addition, they are for sure lots cheaper. Your ones look really wonderful, but safety first.

I drive one and leave 2 in storage for the winter. One goes in a sealed trailer. Since I have a gravel floored shed with mice, I surround the other cars with 20 inch flashing and add a little gravel to the lower outer flashing edge. Mice can vertical jump 13 inches. I put stabilizer or 2 stroke oil in gas, and run it through the engine, drain the carbs after shutting off the gas, and pull the battery to put on a trickle charger at home as my shed has no electricity. I'll often put a little 2 stroke oil under the plugs and turn it over. They always start and smoke a bit in the spring.

I don't do a thing with my 26 touring. I just back it in my garage, shut her off and wait till it warms up. I been doing this for the last 10 years and in the spring I change the oil and clean the New Day timer. She will start every time in the spring.

I would not drill the wooden spokes to take the magnet. Rather, find/make a receiver to hold it and attach it to the spoke. If you don't like the way it looks, add a little sign, " A stupid road law demands I fit a speedo to this old car."

Allan from down under.

Here in northern Ohio I just pull her into the unheated pole building and shut it down, if a nice day comes along with little salt on the road get out and drive. Remember any time driving your T does not count against your time here on earth. Or so I've heard. As far as a speedo why not just get a GPS I've been using one for years. Jim

In college, I had a friend who used brake fluid on his tires, claiming it was good for the rubber (since brake lines and brake seals are rubber and can’t afford to be exposed to anything that is detrimental to rubber) and his tires did always look great. Years ago, I brought it up on the forum and several affirmed that brake fluid was good for preserving rubber while others were skeptical. Years ago, I used brake fluid on my Universal Model T tires for a time. I bought and installed them on my 1926 coupe in 1970 and after 51 years, they are still going strong. Jim Patrick

Brake fluid will attack most paint. I would not use it on tires for that reason. It might also attack tire cord. Car dealers often put some kind of ( perhaps) silicon-based clear dope on tires at delivery. It makes the tire look "wet" and lasts for a while. If put on too heavily, it will sling off on the fenders and attract dust and crud, and it can be difficult to get rid of.

Brake fluid on tires--takes me back to the years I had the show car urge. At the time my vehicle was a 37 Packard, original and believe it or not it belonged to an elderly school teacher who lived near the school and only drove the Packard to the grocery store and church. I attended several shows during the years and always took a trophy home. I used brake fluid on the tires when detailing the car. It gave the tires a nice matte finish versus the shinny tire coating others used.

One year my brother restored a Model A for a friend. He took the car to a MARC show when he completed the restoration. It took the best in class, best of show and the Henry Ford trophy. I helped him prep the car and cleaned the tires with brake fluid using a tooth brush.

I have used brake fluid on the beads and rim surfaces when mounting tires on my every day cars ever since the 1950s. The tires go on easy, sealed well, and the bead breaks loose easily when demounting. No problem with paint. I do repaint aluminum rims before mounting the tires.
Art Mirtes

I am amazed at the above comment. In my modeling days I used brake fluid as a paint stripper.

This magnet will be used by my tachometer.

Rather than drill into a spoke, you can use one of the hub nuts to attach the magnet

BUT I should warn you that your tachometer setup may be doomed to failure. I used, or tried to use, a bicycle speedometer for several years. The sensor and magnet arrangement you see in the photo was one of many attempts to make the bike speedometer work long term. Everything failed. I even tried putting the sensor and magnet inside a rear brake drum where I assumed it would be safe from road hazards. Like all previous attempts, that worked for awhile and then quit. I never finished a trip with the speedometer working. I have a Model T era speedometer I will restore and install, and I intend to back it up with a GPS navigation device. After multiple failures, I'm not wasting any more time on a magnet/sensor system.

This is really a nice setup. Almost invisible. - Thumbs up!

According to the difficulties you experience... I am not really surprised. The major problem are buzzer coils and spark-cables. They cause horrible EMI (electromagnetic interference) from inside the coil box (its back and bottom side is wood, no steel) as well as spark plug cables, and the cable to the sensor is for sure not electrically shielded, too. I would really wonder if a bicycle speedometer can reliably operate in such environment as a bicycle has absolutely no EMI at all.

Therefore I use a shielded cable (all wires inside a copper mesh tube) to the left-rear wheel, to get as quick as possible far, far away from all this EMI noise source. This metal mesh is connected to car chassis ground and catches most of this noise. I also implemented electronic filtering and protection to block all the noise approaching through the cable.
It will help you for sure, too, if you replace the original bicycle tachometer cable (only two wires side-by-side) by such shielded cable. Depending on number of wires used in this cable, a shielded stereo microphone cable (two wires, each one in a separate copper mesh) should match your needs. Twist the meshes on one end to each other and connect them to the car chassis ground. Leave the other mesh ends open! Then use the inner wires for the sensor, but keep the unshielded wires as short as possible (less than 1").

Current status:

• The cable is installed and connected to my "dashboard computer", but the sensor is not mounted yet.
• So the cable already will receive all EMI noise, but I had not a single triggering pulse (would cause a displayed speed) yet. In other words - my filtering seems to work.
• During next week I will pure the sensor in EPOXY to make it waterproof. Then I can mount it.

If you like, I can make a little video available to you when I am back in my office (tomorrow), then you can see my setup.

I would say to you as a friend, Quit trying to make it a modern car. Just drive it slow enough that you can smell the rose.

In winter driving you wont smell the roses.

Above Rainer mentioned by law he has to have some type of speedometer.

Yes make & show us a video.

Hello.

Sadly I cannot upload a video, only pictures, here. So I placed the short video on my own WEB server. Please ignore my german language comments, I sent this video before to a friend and I explained to him verbally...

Here is the link:
http://www.hantsch.co.at/_temp/unfinish ... ometer.mp4

The sensor shown at the very beginning will be mounted in a distance of 1/2" to the left rear AC brake. There it is almost hidden between all this steel rods and levers. I use a magnetic bit for manually generating magnetic pulses for demonstration - as the wheel will do in future (one pulse per revolution). The measurement has the precision of 1 km/h (kilometer per hour) and is updated every second. Later I pan to the display and show how the speed is displayed.
Well, this video will not win an oscar, but it shows how it works. It was a bit difficult to move the magnet and point the camera at same time to the display.


And this is the dashboard: My Lizzy is left-steered, so the dashboard is made to fit into the left edge below windshield. You only see the rectangular area while both ears (top and left) sit behind the body. The former owner has drilled a mounting hole for a light switch into the metal profile below the windshield, so I had to re-use it. This finally led into this mounting location.
The left rotating switch is for direction lights, the right one is OFF-Parking light-Low Beam-High-Beam.
I think this looks better than a chromed direction light switch on steering column + pull-switch hanging down below the windshield for headlights.

Rainer

If you put your video on Youtube and set the access to public, you can post a link to it here, like so:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Flx3dYUXGFI