MTFCA Forum

Just starting this month’s thread.

And I swapped the trickle charger from the ‘27 to the ‘14.

Eric

I am in Colorado for a wedding and my T's are holed up in the garage, so I haven't done anything. When I get home I hope to go for a ride, especially if it is snowing.

Movin' stuff

Today, finished machine work on front axle and spindles assembled and installed the complete assembly. Radiator shop called and my brass vee radiator is restored and ready for pick up.

just sayin'

FRONTYBOY

Today, in New Orleans, I let our T get an extra hour of sleep. I've been saving up an hour of God's time for this moment.

Getting to know the status of my Grandfathers T. Took off the inspection cover to take a look around in the engine. Just want to get familiar with the engine and it's current state.

Have to say I was pleasantly surprised! First thing I see is dippers on the rods, then aluminum pistons. Everything looks good and I can see shims still remaining on all the rods and the mains. The car has no knocking, but being new to Model T's figure any knowledge is good knowledge. I wiggle the caps and there is no noticeable play, only a very small amount of side to side play. No sludge or build up.

My plan was to figure out how to blow out the oil line, just to make sure it is clear. Then add two of the internal accessory oil lines, figured they can't hurt to have. Oh and check the rod bearings to see how they are doing.

I rigged up an air hose setup that I was able to worm through the gear to the stock oil line outlet. Gave it a few generous blasts with the air and could feel the air flow coming back from the hogs head. So seems clear to me.

Pulled the #1 cylinder rod cap and the babbit looked great. Still had shims left on both sides and the crank was perfectly smooth. Put a piece of plastigage in, retightened then compared to the gage. It was a nice uniform thickness all the way across the bearing, measuring 0.0015".
Did the same to the #4 rod and had the exact same 0.0015". Decided to leave #2 & #3 alone as all looks and sounds just fine.

Now time to add the two accessory internal oil lines. Took out the "horseshoes", cleaned them up, ran a tap through them to clean the threads. Then test fit the oil lines to them. They needed some tweeking to get a good fit, but nothing crazy. It was a bit tricky to get them in position, but managed to after a few derogatory words. Then made sure there were no clearance issues, all good.

Cleaned up the Inspection cover, un-dimpled the bolt holes and got it good and straight. Gave the IC bolts a good run in degreaser in my small ultrasonic cleaner, then rinsed and dried them. Gave it a thin film of Ultra Black on the gasket side, let it tack a little them placed the gasket on it. Then aligned the cover/horseshoes and oil lines up with some 4" long bolts. Then put a thin film of Ultra Black on the cover where the nylon washers/bolts would go. Put a small amount of Ultra Black on the bolt threads at the shoulder of the bolts, slipped the nylon washers on and slowly started bolting it up. I very gently snugged up the bolts with a nut driver using a torque pattern from the center of the cover to the outsides. When the gasket was compressed uniformly, did a two stage tightening lightly by hand with a small 1/4" drive ratchet, Certainly didn't want to strip a horseshoe thread or over compress the gasket. Then let it all dry for 48 hrs.

Put oil in it today (10W30) and gave her a start. Sounds great, purrs like a kitten with a gas problem and no other noticable sounds. Oh and the big question..... No Oil leaks from the inspection cover! I would call this a great start to November!

The next project is to rebuild the rear axle, drive shaft tube and add some Rocky Mountain brakes. Need to do some research on all of these then will start the work.

Near the end of the driving season in Phoenix "May" I had a engine knock tightened up the rods but sill had the knock To hot to do more. So waited till November first to pulled the engine the third main didn't even touch the plastigauge I think I found the problem should be back in next weekend

Drove 40 miles in 62 minutes....

Finally got my 1020 Wrecker on the road for the 1st time. As I know, that's its 1st road trip (even though very short distance) in more than 30 years! It all went smoothly but I am really still trying to learn how to drive it and more importantly stop it without stalling! It made me very happy to see and hear the old T and I intend to take it out again for a longer run, maybe this weekend weather permitting.

Drove it and drove it. Got it up to 40-41 max on a flat straight.
Wife's car had a flat tire. Used the T to haul it to a garage for repair. The gas station did not have the correct valve stem, so had to make a parts run too, for the garage but I got the tire fixed for $10.