Model T and the Check Engine light

[Been Here Before]

UnKind Comment:

There are a few on this Forum of a certain age that remember that before starting the motor and driving away there was a ritual of checking the engine and engine compartment.

I see current comments about carburetor icing in 100 degree plus temperatures. Comments about proper tyre pressure. Oil levels. Spark/no spark.

Today's car now has that all taken care or with a computer and a reminder.

This is a reminder that the Model T too has a computer -- the operator -- and every time the vehicle is taken out the driver's check engine reminder is always on.

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[Rich P. Bingham]

I don't know why that good advice would be an unkind comment. ?!?

As for the "check engine light", that came on in my 2011 F-150 a few weeks back. I raised the hood, and sure enough, the engine was still there ! But the light didn't go out. Totally beyond my ken, it took a wizard with a computer to determine that the "computer" in the pickup was unhappy or something and needed a "re-boot".

[JohnM]

That is very good advice! And if I may add, the model T has none of the modern safety devices such as seatbelts, ABS, collision avoidance, low tire pressure warning, backup cameras, etc. The best and only safety device is the one between the driver's ears.

[TXGOAT2]

It's 1959 prime time. The splasshy, up-beat Chevrolet ad is just over, and "Sea Hunt" is about to begin. Just as the program starts, the picture starts "rolling", making it impossible to watch. Dad mutters, then tells Junior to "Git up and go give that thing a slap on the backside!" Junior complies, and the set begins to work properly again.

It's 2022, late night, and "Point Break" is about to begin for the umpteenth time. Right in the middle of the third lawsuit solicitation commercial, the screen goes dark. "Now what?", wails Mom. Junior gets up and unplugs the 4X8 foot TV, then plugs it back in. The screen lights up with the fifth lawsuit solicitation commercial. "Cool" says Mom, as she digs into her Weightwatcher's organic Mini Veggiebowl. "Whatever" mutters Junior, emitting a cloud of cherry-scented, cannibanol-laced smoke as he nurses his vape.

[JohnM]

Pat, one of the running gags among some of my car friends when a car isn't running well is, did you turn it off and back on again to see if that fixes it?

[Allan]

We have those lights here in our vehicles too. My godson, who runs a machine and service shop, calls them "OH, Shit!" lights. That's the reaction customers report when it first comes on. On two of our moderns it has indicated a faulty oxygen sensor in the exhaust system. No problem really, but if you ignore it, it you may be missing something serious. So far my experience is it indicates another $800 will be needed to turn it off.

Allan from down under.

[Wayne Sheldon]

Pat McN said;
"It's 1959 prime time. The splasshy, up-beat Chevrolet ad is just over, and "Sea Hunt" is about to begin. Just as the program starts, the picture starts "rolling", making it impossible to watch. Dad mutters, then tells Junior to "Git up and go give that thing a slap on the backside!" Junior complies, and the set begins to work properly again."

When I was in high school, we had an old tv that had a vertical hold problem. I first discovered the magic spot on the side of the tv I could simply tap lightly with one finger. Then I discovered a very specific spot (one specific tile in the floor!) where I could stomp my foot and correct the recalcitrant tv back to working as it should. Nobody else in the family could find it, no matter how many times they would watch me "fix" the tv that way.
I understood then that it was a harmonic vibration through the floor that if just right, would vibrate the offending circuit inside the tv. Many years later, I often used that knowledge to diagnose weird problems in communications equipment.

A bit of a long read, but some might enjoy it?

An interesting to me, wonderful and related story. Certain details left out for important reasons. However, The problem was eventually nailed down and FULLY CORRECTED! So not anymore of actual importance to enemies or foreign agents.
A coworker of mine for several years, and good friend, served a term in the Navy. Due to his knowledge, training, and skills, he was assigned to one of the first of a new series of Navy ships. It was peacetime (sadly, how much of that have we really had in out lifetimes?). However, for general preparedness reasons, this new series of ships was being built, and they needed to be thoroughly tested. So part of their assignments was to put their new ship through rigorous testing, and a lot of that testing was fun if strenuous. They did war games with numerous larger and smaller ships. Their Captain would race any other ship, new or old for a bottle of scotch wager. They did endless drills, and abused their ship any way they could think of!
And it worked. In the midst of a drill, with everyone on board running, manning different drills, different stations? The ship, quite suddenly the main power simply shut off. A drill is one thing. Such an event in a real battle or emergency situation would likely be almost instantly fatal!
The immediate problem was easy. The main power was switched off! How and why it was off took a little while to find. It was simple to fix (in the immediate sense?). They just had to switch one critical main relay back on, and go through the normal power up procedures. But why did it switch off? Everybody was questioned. Where were you, what were you doing when it went off? Nobody was near the relay. Nobody switched anything that could have tripped it.
So they ran more drills. And more drills. And still more drills, until it again shut the whole ship down! And again they questioned everybody. Where, what, how? And again they couldn't find the cause. So they went through the whole process again, changing areas worked around, again and again. Until it again shut the whole main power down. After going through this numerous times, day after day, they narrowed down an area. Eventually, they had dozens of Navy men stomping on the floors in the suspected area. They followed that with dozens of Navy men sitting on the floor and hitting the floor with rubber mallets. Until they found THE SPOT! One small roughly square foot spot that if stomped on, the harmonic vibrations through the steel decks would hit that one critical relay, and trigger the main power shutdown!
A minor fluke of design, nearly impossible to avoid all the millions of potential harmonics. The ship's design engineers had to spend many hours finding the harmonic pathways, and find a permanent fix. Which they did. His ship, and all others in the series, were altered to make certain none of them would suddenly go dead in the water unless so ordered.

My friend and coworker and I made a bit of a specialty dealing with anomalous harmonic vibrations. We were several times called in to bizarre failures that other people couldn't find a cause for. And with a careful approach? We usually found the cause. Once a critical part of the cause was found, the fix was usually easy. We had a few inside jokes about it because we both had had a previous experience with such things.

[TXGOAT2]

1952 Ford V-8 cars had a deep oil pan with flat sides. Some new car owners reported an odd, disturbing sound that would occur at some speeds when turning left or right. Enough complaints were received to provoke an investigation. The affected cars became known as "hooters". Eventually, after much analysis, the source of the sound was located. It was the oil pan. Under some conditions, such as turning corners at low speeds, the flat sides of the oil pan would resonate due to a vibration from the driveline or exhaust and emit a hooting sound. The solution was to change the design of the pan to include deep ribs stamped into the sides to stiffen them. Some '52 cars were retrofitted, and the 1953 V-8s all had the modified pan.

[Craig Leach]

Fun story. Kind of like the one about the Nuclear generating station that was about to melt down and no one could figure out how to stop it. They called one of the old engineers that worked on the plant and asked if he could help. He came down and hit the control panel with a hammer & the Nuclear reaction stopped they where grateful until he sent them a bill for $1,000,100 they called him up and asked him to justify the huge amount. He explained that $100 was for the service call and the $1,000,000 was knowing where to hit the panel.
When OBD first came out the story was if you had the scanner it would tell you what was wrong with the car, BS it never did it only gave you what happened you had to figure out why it happened. Same as before but you had real time info instead of what the customer thought happened. this is more important know than before. I.E. My truck will not start. Will it crank over? I don't know it won't start!
I'm convinced that Darwin was wrong and that warning labels is the thing that has diluted the jean pool the most. If you are stupid enough to use a hair dryer in the bath tub you should not reproduce. Don't take this wrong I own many scanners( I have to you can't change a headlight in my wife's car or check the oil in the transmission with out one.) Other than my grandkids I don't know anyone under 30 years old that knows how to check the oil!
Darn I almost fell off my soap box.
Craig.

[Duey_C]

Gosh, so true. One can't be complacent in a T. All senses are involved. Spidey senses if you will. Nicely done.
For me: "No dear, I'm not looking at you. I'm listening to the exhaust." Part of the cool-factor of a T, paying attention.
Not to single you out Wayne but what a cool story and "vertical hold" Pat? I haven't heard or read that phrase in a long time!
And I'm only 58! Those old TVs sure could get into a fit sometimes and there were knobs for that...
John, my pickup needs that every so often. Shut it off, open the door, restart it and the stepper motor for the heat will straighten out.
No help for the RPM gauge stepper motor but ya run it by feel anyway. Bounced right back to George's post totally by chance didn't I?

[Wayne Sheldon]

Craig L, We did communications systems contracting, all kinds of communications systems, from the top of the tower, to the bottom of the trench and beyond! Some of the first commercial satellite receiving dishes (most were 13 feet!), one of the earliest non-government LANs for computer IT. I like to joke that my fingerprints are all over the foundation of the internet (they are!).

So many years ago now, I remember being furious when the manufacturers had to start putting warning labels on most of the materials for antennas we had to use; "WARNING, You could be killed if this item comes in contact with power lines!" It had to cost the manufacturers thousands of dollars to print and apply all those warning labels! A simple antenna job might have a dozen items with warming labels! We had to pay more for materials, customers had to pay us more for completed jobs.

Trust me! If someone is dumb enough to put a metal antenna, onto a metal pole, hang onto the metal pole and stick the danged thing into a power wire? They are far too dumb to read the stupid label!

Besides, if they are that stupid, they deserve to die!

Apologies to those more sensitive than I.

[TXGOAT2]

If you are able to get an owners' manual for a new product, you will find that it is mostly BS "safety" exhortations and California nonsense warnings and injunctions. So you wade through that, looking for useful information, parts lists, etc, such as could be found in a 1930 Nash owner's manual or a 1965 electric mixer manaual. You come across a page or two of the perfecty obvious, belabored, and then you find that the balance of the remaining pages are in French, Farsi, and Urdu. If the item or accessory is very new, and you can get any printed information, you will probably find that it is nothing but a few very crude, cartoon-like pictures and hierglyphics. WARNING! THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA IS RUN BY A CABAL OF FLATUS-SNIFFING IDIOTS, AND THEY THINK YOU'RE ONE OF THEM! (No wonder CHINA is taking over the planet. Welcome to Teletubbie USA.)

[Bryant]

This reminds me of the “wiggle test” you can perform with a scan tool. While monitoring the scanners data stream go component to component wiggling wires, sensors, plugs trying to pinpoint where the issue is. In the Model T era one would have to be the computer and have a good set of diagnostic skills. In the current era one still has to possess these skills and be able to decipher computer code. Believe it or not a modern mechanic does not have less skills than those of the past. If anything they need more. This is not to say that some just clear a code thinking the problem will go away! There has been bad mechanics in both eras. I to long for a simpler mechanical time but I believe that problems exist before solutions. all of which started in a previous era leading to the current time. I would think that a lot of the technology that exists in automobiles today is because previous generations didn’t bother or care about there cars. That logic has been passed down generationally to the mindset we can see today. Teach your children well.
Bryant