Where does my model t made in Canada come from

[Vonau]

I'm a newbie here and have owned a touring 1926 made in Canada for a few months. I'm fascinated by this old technology and also enthusiastic about this forum.

I live in Switzerland, hence the bad language.

It's now my turn to rebuild some of the car and try to make it drivable.

A big hurdle will then be to get the permit for the road in Switzerland. Our authorities are very complicated. The biggest problem is that I don't know where the car originally ran.

My previous owner bought it from an estate only with a Swiss customs document. From this it appears that the Ford was imported to our country in 1988, from where is unknown. The Touring was then never made mobile and was discontinued somewhere.

Therefore my question: Is it possible to narrow down to which countries Ford T made in Canada were delivered at that time? Australia is clear to me. But then the steering wheel would not be on the left side.

I'm curious about your insights.

Greetings from switzerland

[Norman Kling]

I know of some Canadian cars here in California. They were sold to people worldwide. The Canadians today drive on the right side like we do in U.S.A. and all but one of the cars made in Canada that I know of have the steering on the left. However some of the earlier cars had it on the right because some provinces in Canada drove on the left like they do in England, but later it became universal in Canada to drive on the right. Some of the European countries drove on the left until later in the 20th century. Anyway, having said that, it would be almost impossible to trace the origins of your car because in the last 96 years the car must have had many different owners and even been located in several countries. Also it might have had engine changes so the number might not be original to the car.
Having said all the above, I think your best chance of finding out more about the car, would be to trace the owners back from the present, beginning with whom you purchased. Since it was an estate, you need to find family members who might know where the previous owner obtained it. Then trace back from there. This would be something like tracing your family tree.
Norm

[Colin Mavins]

Your car most likely was built in Walkerville which was the main Canadian plant starting in about 1914 ford started building plants in Toronto Montreal and Winnipeg but if your car was built to be exported I would think it would be built at the main plant . The Winnipeg plant was built in 1917 to supply western Canada for example so I dont think they would build your car in Winnipeg and ship to Sweden. Canada built both right and left hand drive cars because some of our Provence's were still British ie east and west coast. I would also check your tag it may tell you in the fine print . Mine being 1912 states built in Walkerville Canada Im do not know what they did in 1926

[Steve Jelf]

Canada exported Fords to many countries, so they made both LHD and RHD. Yes, Canadian provinces differed, but so did overseas parts of the empire. This is why Canadian open bodies have two front doors, while USA open cars before 1926 have only one front door.

[Vonau]

Hi

Thanks in advance for the feedback. I have a photo of the sign in the footwell. Can you tell where the Ford was made?

Next I have a question about the numbers. I know that the Ford USA engine number and chassis number were identical. Was that also the case with Ford made in Canada?
My engine number and chassis number are not identical. The numbers are not far apart (C6448xx and C6549xx).

I once read that engines were prefabricated in Canada in winter and stored in a hall. When it got warmer, vehicles were produced again. The foremost (newest) motor was then installed first. Can that be a reason or was my motor replaced at some point?

What do you know about this?

Greeting

[FundyTides]

Congratulations. The car looks like it is in good condition and has great potential. I have a 27 Canadian Touring and you are lucky to have a patent tag in such great shape. Mine appears to be aluminum and is so corroded it is mostly illegible. Since your tag says "Ford Ont" I would think it was built in the Toronto (Ontario) plant. The other plants were in different provinces (Quebec and Manitoba) and they might be marked differently. Someone who knows more about this can correct me if I am wrong. Have fun with your car and watch for the small differences from USA models. Different wheels/spokes, Robertson screws, rear seat cushion size, radiator thickness/fan hub length, are some other things that have challenged me as I have worked on mine.

[Allan]

Ford, Ont, is likely Ford City, site of the Ford plant in Ontario. It was founded by Ford to produce cars for export. It was actually part of Walkerville, home of the Walkerville Wagon Works.

Allan from down under,.

[Bruce Compton]

"Ford Ont" Was actually Walkerville Ont, and later (1930's) changed to Windsor Ont. Most likely your '27 was made there. The engine number should be preceded by the stamped letter "C".

[DanTreace]

Next I have a question about the numbers. I know that the Ford USA engine number and chassis number were identical. Was that also the case with Ford made in Canada?
My engine number and chassis number are not identical. The numbers are not far apart (C6448xx and C6549xx).

I once read that engines were prefabricated in Canada in winter and stored in a hall. When it got warmer, vehicles were produced again. The foremost (newest) motor was then installed first. Can that be a reason or was my motor replaced at some point?

The numbers on the frame and motor should match, so appears the engine was replaced in its life in Canada. If that was done at the factory is unknown, would assume finished cars at the date of yours, being the 26-27 model years, frame number matched the engine number.

As long as your document of import has the engine # listed, you should be ok with just the engine number, would not try to use both numbers, the motor number is how the Ford is identified. Here is a listing of the Canada engine numbers with the C- prefix. Your T would have been made at the Walkerville OT plant.

And would appear your replacement motor was a correct assembled engine, if the factory numeral stamping shows it was a true assembled motor, many times only the bare block was replaced, these non-complete engines were left blank, the installer was to stamp the replacement block with the old number of the broken engine being replaced.

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[Hap_Tucker]

Betschart,

Welcome to the forum and to the Model T Hobby. You have a great looking touring car!

You asked:
“Therefore my question: Is it possible to narrow down to which countries Ford T made in Canada were delivered at that time? Australia is clear to me. But then the steering wheel would not be on the left side.

Ford of Canada exported Model Ts to most British Commonwealth countries with the exception of the United Kingdome and Ireland. (Reference Page 61 of “In the Shadow of Detroit” by David Roberts and page 19 of “Faces of Ford The Windsor Years by Michael Gladstone White. Most of those British Commonwealth countries would have wanted a Right Hand Drive car which Ford of Canada could have supplied. In the book “In the Shadow of Detroit” they list the following countries/areas that Ford of Canada exported cars and trucks to (ref pages 68 – 72):
Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia, New Britain, Papua, West Samoa, Fiji, Java, Sumatra, Celebes, Malaysia, Borneo, India, Burma, Thailand, Ceylon, Aden, Madagascar and Reunion, British South Africa, British East Africa, British West Africa, and additionally Ford of Canada also appears to have filled some orders for the Detroit Factory.

Please notice that Ford of Canada did not routinely export cars to Europe.

In the case of your left hand drive 1926 Canadian car, there is a chance there is an assembly plant marking on the engine side of the firewall that would indicate which assembly plant the body was assembled to the chassis. If it is there, it is normally a little below the radiator support rod. Below is one posted by Michael Velling from his 1926 Runabout. He and his car were located in Germany. It shows a “W” and a number:

For additional information on those letters please see the posting at:
http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/17 ... 1299852394
Summary:
F for – main Canadian Ford Plant -- Ford City
M for MONTREAL, QUEBEC
T for Toronto, Ontario
W for Winnipeg, Manitoba
V for Vancouver, British Columbia

Also see: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/50 ... 1210428134 for a typed rather than hand written copy of the Canadian engine serial numbers.

It is often hard to tell what parts of the T came from the factory as a car. Over the years many changes could have occurred. As pointed out earlier in the thread – the engine number would have originally matched the number stamped on the frame rail. (See:
Below is some thread drift – but before you start driving the T recommend you review the items below:
For anyone new to Model Ts, in addition to learning to drive the car, it is helpful to be aware of some of the common safety issues the T has. If you know them and avoid them – the car is very safe and fun to drive. If you don’t know about them or if you ignore them, sometimes the car can bite you and get you into trouble. That can be a good laugh or sometimes it can be costly or even tragic.
Recommend you look over the safety items mentioned below:
As mentioned by others – you need to change your habits if you are used to driving a standard shift. The safety folks in the 1980s (it has been a while since I've been in a safety job) said it took about 50 hours of flying the new airplane before you would perform the emergency procedure quickly and correctly. They often used the illustration of the person who learned to ride on a coaster brake bicycle as a kid. They learned to pedal backwards to stop. And in the 1980s lots of those kids were now adults who purchased their first 10 speed bike. If they were still very new to the 10 speed bike and a car pulled out in front of them -- they would instinctively pedal backwards -- and often hit the car. Good news -- they weren't going very fast in most cases -- better news -- most of them had a narrow miss that only scarred them and helped reinforce that they needed to use the hand brakes.) So, if you are very new to driving a T -- be careful and don't try to jerk the steering wheel hard right or left while you are going at speed to dodge a pot-hole etc. The front wheels can quickly go to full lock and the T can roll over. Also don't back up quickly -- as the front wheels have a negative caster when going that direction and can go full lock one direction or the other. When I was learning to drive the T -- I often stalled it when the light turned green. Ah the joys of jumping out, starting it (did I remember to put the spark up... another thing that is easy to forget when you are in hurry etc.).

Joining a local Model T chapter can be a big help to you as well as letting you be a help to them. The Model T Ford Club of America chapters are listed at: https://www.mtfca.com/chapters/ (There is a Model T Ford Club of Austria listed) and The Model T Ford Club International (many of us are members of both clubs and many of our chapters are chapters of both clubs) chapter listing is located at: https://www.modelt.org/chapter-listings.html Remember if you are located close to the state line, a chapter in the nearby state may be closer than one in your actual state.

I routinely post some safety items for new folks. You can learn firsthand by experience, but I like what someone told me, “Experience is the hardest kind of teacher, because it gives the test first and then the lesson afterward.” For folks who are familiar with the T’s they often already know these items from either firsthand experience or from the experience others have had. None of this is to scare you. The T is a faithful servant but just like you shouldn’t run up fast behind a horse, there are some known items you shouldn’t try with a T or that you should check and make sure they are correct on your T.

First – take your time. It is very different from most other cars we drive (about the same if your other car is a 1906-1927 four cylinder Ford). See the posting at: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/80 ... 1248047549 where a new driver had a learning experience even at a slow speed. You can drive thousands of miles without an issue – but the first 50 hours in the car you are still learning how to drive it. And if an emergency comes up during your first 30 or so hours you will probably react like you would in your normal car. That can cause problems if your normal car is a standard shift with a clutch.

If you are married and desire to stay married, don’t ask your wife to hand crank the car for you while you forget to retard the spark. I can still see the photo from the antique car magazine of the wife with a cast on her arm next to the T. She didn’t look very happy. And yes, her husband forgot to retard the spark lever and the T backfired and broke her arm. And when you ask someone to retard the spark – visually look to make sure they did it correctly. When I was about 6 or 7 years old, I was running the spark & gas levers while Dad cranked the car. He said retard the spark and I moved the gas lever up. He caught it in time – but when you ask someone else to retard the spark – look before you hand crank.

Cranking with the left hand is awkward for many of us. But it is safer for hand cranking the T. Also pulling up on the crank is safer and NOT spinning the crank/engine is much safer. If you pull up left handed and it backfires – it will jerk the crank out of your hand (or it did for me). And when you grip the crank – keep your thumb on the same side of the crank as your four fingers. I do NOT push down on the crank. If it backfires – you will break your arm/wrist or something. Good news – you will not harm the crank or engine….

I would encourage you to ask the previous owner if the Babbitt rear thrust bearings were replaced with bronze thrust bearings in the past. If he doesn’t know – I would highly recommend that you check and confirm what they are made out of. There are also some roller bearing thrust washer/bearings. I personally would recommend the bronze ones – but the main thing is to make sure they are not the original Babbitt thrust washers. When the babbitt fails [not if but when]– they tend to go quickly and you no longer have a transmission brake, or low or high or reverse gear. You are freewheeling because the pinion gear is no longer making proper contact with the ring gear (also called crown gear). Those rear axle thrust bearings if they are babbitt can fail with minimal warning leaving the driver without the normal transmission brake (the main regular brake on a stock Model T). See the discussion at:http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/50 ... 1233159025 If you lose the brakes and you are on a flat area with minimal traffic – it is not nearly as bad as losing them while going downhill towards a busy intersection. See the rear axle babbitt discussion part way down in the following thread: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/25 ... 1332591272 With the 1926-27 larger rear emergency brake drums, if they are working well and you pull the lever back quickly – you are better off than the 1925 and earlier cast iron emergency brake shoes against an eight inch brake drum. For folks with the earlier 8 inch rear drums I recommend the new accessory lined brake shoes. (Comment: originally the thrust washers were bronze in the 1909-mid1915 cars and then Ford switched to babbitt on the cars during 1915 ref: http://www.mtfca.com/encyclo/P-R.htm#rax3 see part number 2528 )

Below are some additional safety items and links that are helpful to a new T owner. Many of the items below are issues from a part being repaired and then installed incorrectly (such as the front spring perches – which can cause the T to be a wild ride and even turn over. )

If you are driving slowly on a farm where it doesn’t matter if the brakes fail, the spokes fail, the car turns over, etc. – then you can ignore them all. I would encourage you to review them. Getting an experienced Model T person to help you learn about your car can save you lots of frustration and possible expense. For example, if you fail to retard the spark and you push down on the starting crank at the front of the car to start the car, you could easily break your arm. That is a known safety issue with Model Ts. And it isn’t dangerous as long as you understand what causes it [spark lever advanced [that is the left hand lever on a left hand drive car or the right hand lever on a right hand car] should be pushed up], commutator adjustment rod installed wrong or bent improperly so that even with the spark lever up, the spark is still too far advanced, shorted wire on the commutator, etc.. And if you use the electrical starter that your car may have – if the spark is advanced and the engine back fires – it can damage the starter and/or bendix drive. For additional details please see: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/50 ... 1224126132

http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/50893/69444.html
and there are other related threads.

Some other safety related items:

And be sure the car is in safe working order. An engine that burns oil is not a critical safety issue (at least not in my book) but the front-end castor if it is set up negative can flip the car. Those and similar items are well documented "oops" for the T. But if you have never been around one -- they are probably new "data points" for you. Some of them are listed below – not to scare you but to let you learn from others rather than discovering all the lessons on your own.

Safety Glass http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/50893/72116.html

Use safety wire and not lock washers or cotter pins on the two studs holding the wishbone to the underside of the engine. Wire the two studs together. Why? Because even if the nuts have cotter pins there have been cases where the studs back out. That allows the wishbone to be loose and the steering can become useless.

Lots of safety items http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/50893/69429.html

Over center steering – shouldn’t happen on the later Ts (Ford added a stop inside the steering gear housing. The change was approved Oct 28, 1921 and would have taken a little while to be put into regular production. Ref: http://www.mtfca.com/encyclo/S-T.htm#sgc )– So cars after the new part was used are a little safer than the earlier cars. But if someone replaced the steering gear housing or rebuilt it without the lock pin – or installed the wrong length drag link etc. the over center steering might still happen - see: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/80257/86345.html as well as: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/257047/300409.html

Types of safety wire: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/29/41859.html

Example of loss of brakes caused by drive shaft failure: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/29/47804.html

Top T tips – many of them are safety related also: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/80257/85208.html

T safety check list see: https://www.mtfca.com/wp-content/upload ... elease.pdf

And if you have a gas hot water heater in the garage – be very very careful. The float in a Model T Carb will sometimes stick (or trash in the valve) and the carb will leak gasoline. Not too bad if there are no sparks or flames. But several homes, garages and cars have been lost when a gas hot water heater was nearby and someone started the dishwasher etc. that caused the hot water heater burner to turn on at the wrong time. Note gas fumes tend to be heavier than regular air …. so they tend to hug the floor. If you adjust your garage door to let the mice in and the air out – that is a temp work around. But replacing the gas fired hot water heater with an electric heater or having the gas one relocated away from the garage is the best thing. Note there are also gas/propane fired hot water heaters that are supposed to detect the presence of gas fumes and not light their burner. I’m old school – I would not want to trust the computer technology to work perfectly every time….

Even with a perfectly good and properly adjusted front steering system – if you back up quickly, the front wheels can go full left or full right and pull the steering wheel out of your hand – so remember to back up slowly. It is caused by the caster of the front wheels similar to the casters on the front of the shopping cart – designed to be stable in one direction but not so stable in the opposite direction. If someone rebuilt the front axle and it is was really difficult to keep the car going straight, they may have inadvertently swapped the front spring perches. There is a left and a right spring perch that tilts the axle so the bottom of the axle is slightly ahead of the top of the axle (5 1/2 degrees positive caster – although there is some discussion that it is a little less but still positive for the balloon tires). If it has negative to neutral caster it can cause a wild ride and also could cause the car to flip even at a slow speed see:http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/80 ... 1233523419 that shows the spring perch installed incorrectly and how the front axle looks then. Also see: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/29/40382.html Note even with the spring perch installed correctly a bent or shortened wishbone could cause neutral to negative caster.


Wood spokes work fine – but they need to fit tightly, not be split or wood rotted, made of quality wood (pine is not a good choice and yes, some folks have offered pine spokes for sale) and the bolts etc. need to be tight without too much wobble in the wheel. see:http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/17 ... 1322326314


Again a T is a faithful servant but it has some known issues that the driver needs to be aware of and to take proper precautions about.

Steve Jelf has an excellent set of books he recommends for new owners on his web site at: http://dauntlessgeezer.com/ with the T section at: http://dauntlessgeezer.com/DG52.html with photo of a failed rear axle thrust bearing and the recommended books listed at: http://dauntlessgeezer.com/DG80.html


There is a ton of information at: http://www.cimorelli.com/mtdl/mtdl_year_title_list.htm One of the books there is the Ford Manual for the 1925 cars see: http://www.cimorelli.com/mtdl/1925/1925manual.pdf
There will also be an improved car manual for 1926-27.
The Ford Instruction Course the link is: http://www.mtfca.com/books/Course.htm And to help you with parts identification etc. I like Lang’s Old Car Parts on line catalog (you can also down load it as a PDF) available from: https://www.modeltford.com/download.aspx 16 mb so on a slow connection start the down load when you are going to do something else. Many of the photos are in color. Many but not all of the part numbers are the same as those used by Ford. They also have some helpful tips in the catalog. They are also great folks to deal with.

I would also recommend that you review Milt Webb’s excellent “How to remove a T from mothballs” see the posting at: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/29/8538.html and scroll down to Tom Mullin’s posting the third posting from the top. It was written for a T that had been stored for a long time – running the checklist on any T can help you know what to look for.

Respectfully submitted,

Hap l9l5 cut off

[Vonau]

Wow, thanks for all of that feedback.

The forum is always very helpful and I will need all the good advice.

Yes, the embossing T2856 can be found on the firewall. So it is clear that the Ford was assembled in Toronto. It would be interesting to know what the numbers mean.

Of course, it can be good over the years that the engine from another car was installed. It is interesting that the numbers are quite close. You are within two months of DanTreace's list. All parts on the engine are also stamped with Ford made in Canada.

Looking at the countries listed by Hap_Tucker, I think the greatest likelihood is that the Touring was imported into Switzerland from Canada next to maybe the USA. Therefore my question:

Here in Switzerland, almost up until the early days of the automobile, all the data on vehicles ever registered in Switzerland were kept in an archive. In the case of a rediscovered classic car, the engine number and chassis number can be used to trace exactly when, how long and where the vehicle was registered.

Is there perhaps also the possibility in Canada to find out the past of a vehicle in this way?

greetings from Switzerland