Don't Loose Your Head

New Head for the Coupe

After the first few months when most of the bugs were worked out  my '28 Coupe has been running relatively well now for over twenty years. However, it has never been very powerful. If a stock Model A in good condition generates 40 hp, I'd guess the coupe has been down around 35 the whole time. About ten years ago I put a lower ration rear end in it to give it a little more top speed. Consequently it's a little down on power on starts from stop and on hills.

In June my dad came down for a visit. I bought some parts for the Model A's so we could tinker with them while he was here. We tuned and put new tires on the truck,  and we put a Snyder 5.5 high compression head on the coupe. The head swap went very smoothly. We  lapped the valves while we were at it and buttoned it up in just a couple of hours.

The engine's running character was significantly changed. During  a cold start the starter has a slightly tougher time turning it over, has to crank a little longer before firing and an easy start requires more open throttle than before. Even the sound of the engine changed somewhat.  I'm not sure I'd be able to cold start it with a hand crank any longer.
Driving around with the new head revealed that the proper spark advance settings have changed. Whereas before it was pretty much spark lever up to start and down to drive, now I can advance the spark only about 1/3 of the travel of the lever before I feel a pounding from the engine that I interpret as pre-ignition. I have taken it on the freeway for a short couple of miles and gotten the car up to 55mph. I was able to advance the spark more then, but there was so much wind noise and commotion I couldn't hear if the engine was knocking or not. I feel confident that now I could take the coupe on a longer trip and maintain 50-55 the whole time without any trouble.
Can't put my finger on it, but something still doesn't seem right since putting the new head on. The engine just doesn't run as smoothly. But it definitely has a bit more power.

Pick Up Update

I can't believe I haven't kept up on this blog. I've had so many fun Model A experiences since my last post. I've been driving the cars regularly so there have been a number of maintenance items and I've also enjoyed a few special times with people prompted by the cars.

Where to begin..

Toward a Reliable Daily Driver

I have continued to knock things off of the pick-up punch list. I've cleaned and adjusted the brakes, though the one drum has not been replace. I've replaced or repaired all the steering part from the pitman arm through to the tie rod ends. The distributor body has been adjusted and now the gap between the rotor and the buttons inside the distributor body is more or less consistent. The lights are rewired back to the original style and are functioning as reliably as one can expect using reproduction conduit connectors. The doors have been adjusted and, while they don't fit properly, the make a whole lot less racket and are unlikely to pop open. All in all the basic driving and reliability issues have all been addressed. Now, I feel I could take this car on the road and drive hundreds of miles in complete peace of mind. And, in fact, I have.

Surprised by Joy

Since acquiring the '31 pickup last September and despite how much I've always wanted a Model A pickup, I'd still underestimated the joy of owning one. Being a shade tree mechanic and a do-it-yourself  homeowner, I seem to always be needing a pickup. Fortunately, our neighborhood is a close one and I've been free to borrow a pickup from a couple of different friends whenever required. But now I have my own and, man, have I used it!

Heavy Haulin'

Recently, I've be occupying myself in the backyard with some landscaping. That has meant hauling retaining wall blocks from Home Depot. While loading the truck with block the truck has drawn a crowd several times. I can park right in front of the garden section, nearly on the walkway and the employees just nod approvingly and the patrons take pictures with their phones as I load 'er up. People stop and ask questions, share their stories and their approval at the old truck being used as a truck.

Which brings me to how the truck functions as a truck.
At first, the tires I had on the truck were the ones that had been exposed to the elements the last 20 years while it sat at my dad's place. They had good tread, but were badly checked. No, that's not really right. They were deeply cracked and could fall apart at any time. I hauled the first couple of loads of block using these tires. The attached photo shows my first load, way too heavy. The truck was mashed to the limit of both the springs and the tires. There were actually no problems, but I worried about it the whole time so I decided to replace the tires anyway. Changing all five tires and tubes took less than two hours using a tire changing stand. Now the truck has all new rubber, Lucas 4-ply blackwalls,  the cheapest tire I could find.  Since changing the tires I've hauled six more loads of block at over 600 lb. per load. In fact, if the Home Depot is right about each block weighing 28 lbs. instead of the 20 lb. I estimated, then the loads were just over 900 lb. (33*28= 928) At first I had the tires under-inflated and 35 lbs or so. But after some consultation on the Fordbarn forum I raised the pressure to 50 lbs and the truck seems to handle the load safely and easily.

Another factor in hauling heavy loads was the rear leaf spring. Over the past couple of months I've been trying to level out the vehicle. It always sat left-side-low. I found in the process of inspecting the rear spring that it wasn't a standard 10 leaf pickup spring. The spring in my truck has only 8 leaves. Someone has softened the ride by using a car spring. If I continue to use the truck as I have this summer, I'll change that out to the stock spring and gain some more load capacity. I may also look into picking up a second set of wheels so I can mount some 6 ply tires on them and use those when I'm hauling stuff.

Family

I'm not the only one in the family who has fallen in love with our newest Model A. Dad and I talk more often on the phone, now that both of us have pickups we're working on.  My wife now regularly requests that we go for rides and run errands in it. Just last night we went shopping in it and on the way home she skooched close and exclaimed how nice it was to be out together in this vehicle. My grandson likes it too, though he has no idea the car is special. He just likes riding around in a car with no seat belts and in which he can stand, poke his hand through the windshield, shift the gears, and hang his head out the window.

Turning a Corner

Maybe there are times when it is a good thing to be crazy. I know I said I'd reached my limit with the '31, but today I went out to the garage to tinker some more. In the process I noticed a drain plug on the top of the steering box. I removed it and shone a light in. The box was dry as an Egyptian tomb. I grabbed some gear oil and poured it in. Immediately the steering, except for the slop, was completely free. On the test drive I could easily make every corner with just light finger pressure on the wheel. It's like driving a completely different vehicle. While I'd like to take the slop out of the steering completely, I could happily drive the car "as is" for years. Looks like we've turned the corner on this car and nearly have a reliable daily driver.

The "A" Story

Weave enough thin strands together and you can make a rope strong enough to bind. Threads of memory, filaments of  old family stories, strings of feeling stemming from the need to bring something good from the shadows of my childhood into the light of present day and from the desire to please my father and have something of his put away for the time when he's passed on,.. All these strands do indeed weave together to tie me tightly to my Model A's.

When I was a little bugger Dad had a '28 pickup that was just sort of a running rust bucket. I have a memory of one winter morning seeing him fill the radiator with hot water before he drove it through the snow to work. Our Jeep Wagoneer must have been broke down again. In another image I can see my brother hanging his feet out the tailgate of that truck as I stand in the back looking down through the topless cab past the open floor and watching the pavement rushing under Dad's feet as we drive down a hill near our house in Incline Village Lake Tahoe. As long as I lived at home that pickup lurked about, but never running. We played in it, abused it, revered it as some strangely valuable possession.

When I left Carson City for college the truck was under a tarp in the garage of the "McAmis house".

Dad had paid my tuition in college so when I'd married, had a son and finally rented a place with a garage I offered to repay him by restoring his Model A.

"You're not getting your hands on my Model A," was his curt response.

I assured him the car would be his, undriven, from the day I finished it until the day I drove him to the cemetery in it, but he wasn't biting. Yet, within a year he called and asked, "What do you want the title to read on this Model A I've got?"

"Same thing it's always read," I replied. "I don't want your car, I just want to .."

"No, this is a different one I got for you," he cut me off.

And a couple of months later he trailered down my '29 Special Coupe. It's a driver, with a shiny black spray job covering an original body and chassis. An absolute treasure. I've been driving the car for 23 years now. I've kept it running using an old book, phone calls to my dad, and trial and error. I love the look of the cowl through the windshield, the sound (of course), and the smell. I feel the car is mine in a very personal and intimate way. I know every nut and bolt and its every rattle and mannerism. I've never wanted to share it with anyone. Didn't want to be made to feel bad by a bunch of wealthy restorers who may subject it and me to snide snipes. Probably a very unfair prejudice, I know. I've been private and protective about the car just like I have been about our childhood.
Dad bought my brother a '31 pickup at about the same time he gave me the coupe. I guess he thought we'd all share them together, but mostly it was just me and Dad. My brother really likes stuff that goes fast. Just this past October my brother sold me his pickup. Because of Dad's old '28 I've always loved Model A pickups. So now I have a '28 and a pickup. Dad is working on his Model A a little bit in his shop. Mostly, I think, he's tearing it down. I don't know if he'll get it all back together, but it's an original and a family heirloom now.
I wouldn't qualify as a restorer, just a loving driver. It's not my hobby it's my lifestyle. Mayhap I'll pass that on to a younger one too.

Seeing the Ight

To my mind there is nothing simpler, more straightforward than a Model A. Working on these cars gives me the opportunity to practice the most basic logic. Take last night (and this morning)as an example. After replacing an ill-fitting four-bladed fan for a two-bladed version I took my wife along on my test drive. The old fan made an irritating creaking noise that made the whole truck sound like a pile of junk. So upon eliminating the bothersome noise a long leisurely test-ride was called for.
Lana and I made our way out of town and along the unlit stretch south of Lake Matthews. What a pleasure to be able to relax about the car and just tool along together talking about other stuff. While driving I was enjoying the easy steering and smooth shifting that were the fruits of some work I'd done over the past couple of weeks. It was also the first time I'd had the opportunity to see my headlights in action since I'd installed the alternator. The lights worked splendidly, but, of course, I wanted to adjust them just a little when we got home. They seemed a bit cross-eyed to me. However, I couldn't re-aim the acorn even after loosening the nut on the bottom of the headlight mounting bar. I gave the bolt a tap with a hammer and the lights went out on that side.
"Must've broken the filament," I thought. And even though it was nine o'clock at night, I really wanted to have everything working when I put the caar away. But replacing the bulb didn't solve the problem. After scratching my head for a while I decided to leave it for today.

This morning I spent an hour with a test light tracing the juice through the harness and that damn little connector at the base of the light acorn. Everything seemed to be working properly, yet the bulb still wouldn't light. It finally occurred to me to check the ground. As soon as I moved my test lamp from the frame to the acorn itself, the test lamp failed to light.
How simple! When I'd tapped the bolt the night before, I'd broken the ground connection to the rest of the car. As soon as I retightened the nut the lights worked perfectly again.
You see? That's how trouble-shooting on these cars always goes. It's a straight shot with no computers or sensors that one can't easily check.
So today, after replacing a tie rod end and tightening the pitman arm I enjoyed another satisfying test drive. Happily, the lights work, the fan remains silent and, as an added bonus the slop in the steering and the wobble are gone. Makes me want to take 'er out again tonight just to see the light.

Spotting an "A" Owner

I've been spotted. There's no sense in trying to stay off the radar now. Just check the driveway. No, it's not the cars parked there that will give it away. It's the oil spots on the concrete. It's like putting out a sign that says, "Model A Parked Here."

I've always put a drip pan under my coupe and it drips more water than oil anyway, so it has been possible to keep the garage floor and the driveway fairly free of oil spots.  Not now that I have the pickup. It produces the spot that broke the camel's back.

Why do I care if there are oil spots on the concrete anyway?

Uhh, truthfully a handful of things come to mind. Mostly, I use my garage. I mean really use it. I've got two Harley's and now two Model A's. Thus, it's likely I'll be  laying on my back on that floor or in that driveway. It would be nice if I weren't wallowing in grease and oil. Also, I often find myself dropping little parts while squeezed under a car and then having to sweep around with my hand to find them. Not pleasant when the floor is oily.

Further, I've always admired a neat shop. It says, "This guy is careful and skillful." My garage has never actually been in that high class category. It pretty much says, "This guy is a shade-tree mechanic and may not know what he is doing." Oily spots all around just add injury to the insult. What if one of these guys slips and breaks his .. beer bottle. Not cool when friends come over and hang out in the garage.

Besides, if there are spots on your driveway and garage floor it means your vehicles are not well-maintained. So even if all my vehicles are crap and leak oil like crazy, I want it to appear that they are tight and clean running machines.

Finally, I subscribe to the "spot that problem" school of vehicle maintenance. All my vehicles are old and have a lot of miles on them. If a new spot appears I need to be able to see it in order to know some new problem has developed. If there are spots everywhere then you can't very well head off trouble. Can you?

Pickup Punch List

I was hanging out, or maybe hiding out,  in the motorcycle shop yesterday knocking back shots of Jack and catching up with the guys. Ed, whose bike is undergoing some extensive and really cool modifications was expressing his impatience. "It's alway just one part away from complete," he groaned.

I agreed and realized that's how I feel about my pickup right now. While I really do feel relieved that the car is registered, when I got home from the DMV I just backed it into the garage and shut the door. I even have a day off which usually means I'm going to be in the garage all day sipping home brew working on my bikes or Model A's. But when I look at that truck right now all I see is a long punch list of things to do with no parts, no money and no end in sight. So today I just shut the door hopped on my Harley and rode away.

Perhaps I just need a break. Here's what I've done since I brought the car home in the first week of September. My brother warned me that the car needed some things and he thought the paint was in relatively poor shape. So after getting it here and taking a few test drives around the block I could see there were indeed some things I'd need to take care of in order to make this a reliable ride to work.

Here were my initial priorities:

1. Assess the condition of the Paint and Body, and general condition of the drivetrain.
2. Get the Engine Running Reliably
3. Troubleshoot the Electrical System
4. Fix the Hard Steering

So here are some of the things I've been doing these last three months.

• Clean the car inside and out. 

Waxed the whole car to investigate the condition of the paint and body. This was fun and rewarding. I found that under all that oxidation was a pretty nice coat of paint. And, while there are many scratches and chips along with a few dents and dull spots, I like the way the truck looks and I may not ever repaint it. There was a family of mice living happily under the seat, but since they weren't paying rent and left a mess, I had to evict them.

After the truck was shined up, I took all the wheels off and inspected the bearings and brakes. One wheel drum needs to be replaced, but I was pleased to find good bearing and brakes on every wheel.

• Completely rewire the car.

There was short in the electrical system somewhere, and the lights and horn didn't work. Many years ago I remember my brother and I poking around trying to locate the short. Doesn't appear that we were successful. I guess as quick fix he had later installed a kill switch. This worked, but I wanted to find the real trouble and eliminate the switch. While I really don't like electrical trouble shooting and repair, there are so few parts to the wire looms, I just replaced them all. It was pretty cheap and gave me the chance to clear out all the splices and quick-fixes on the car and get the lights working.

•  Replace the generator with an alternator.

Even after removing the generator and adjusting the brushes, I could never get the generator to gen properly. It wouldn't produce the 7 amps I wanted. Once my wife, grandson and I got stranded at the store because using the headlights had drained the battery. I've been very pleased with the alternator on my '28, so I put one on the pickup. I'll likely rebuild the generator some day and put it back on. Just doesn't look right to have the new alternator under the hood.

• Replace the points, cap and rotor

I read once that 90% of the engine troubles with the Model A are tied to ignition. Since the engine barely ran I started investigating the ignition system. One cylinder was consistently misfiring and I figured out, after some time, that the cap and rotor weren't centered. The rotor was closer to the contacts on one side of the cap than on the other. One gap was just too wide for the spark to jump. Even replacing both the cap and rotor didn't fix the trouble immediately. I spent quite a while getting the cap to fit properly on the distributor housing and also tweeking the rotor blade to get a consistent gap at all points.

• Replace the entire exhaust system

One day when I had driven the truck to work the exhaust gasket blew out. That afternoon I popped and banged my way back home. I figured this was a sign to tackle the exhaust system next. So I ordered a gasket set, a new manifold and muffler. The truck had a waffle iron manifold and a rusty rattly heater assembly on it. Someday I'll clean all that up so I'll have them for winter use, but for now I want things simple and quiet. When I was replacing the muffler I could see that a non-stock muffler had been welded in at some point. It actually sounded good, but fell apart in my hands as soon as I unbolted the flange.

• Rebuild the carburetor, replace the fuel line and tighten up the leaky petcock.

Even after messing around with the ignition the car wasn't running well and was getting only 9 mpg. I decided to take a look at the carburetor. After all, the car had rarely been started over the last 20 years. The instructions that came with the rebuild kit pretty much said, "take out the old pieces and put the new ones in the same holes." I did this, but gas poured out of the air intake and through the overflow as soon as I opened the petcock. I monkeyed around with the needle valve and float without much success. Finally I just put an extra washer on the needle valve to lower the float level. Now, the gas only  drips out when the tank is full and the engine is off. However, it does this with the carburetor I pulled swapped out from the '28 as well. It's like there is too much fuel pressure for either float. So I haven't completely fixed this yet. Currently everything works fine as long as I remember to turn off the gas when I shut off the car. Anyway, I've got the idle and mixture set where the car seems to  run best and am satisfied for now. I got 12.5 mpg on my last tank, and the engine runs and idles smoothly with good power.

• Replace the pitman arm and drag link along with the inner workings of all the ball joints, and the balls on the steering arms.

This car steers so hard that it takes all my strength the make a turn. And there is 25 + degrees of play at the steering wheel. After inspecting the ball joints at the steering arms, drag link and pitman arm, I decided to rebuild the whole thing. I rejoiced to discover that the ball on the pitman arm was worn nearly flat. I figured this was the trouble for sure.

Yet after replacing all the parts the truck still steers like a WW I tank. So, now I'll have to look into the steering box.

• Flushed and refilled the transmission and differential.

Having quieted the ruckus under the hood a bit I decided to assess the condition of the transmission and differential. While driving at anything above an idle the trany would growl so loudly that you couldn't hear anything else. So this past week I drained and flushed the transmission and replaced the oil in both the trans and the diff. I have to say this was satisfying. There was nearly no oil in the transmission in the first place though the rear end was full of some red oil that looked pretty clean. While I was under there I cleaned of a bit of the grim and saw good paint on everything south of the bell housing. Someone has worked on these before! On the test drive the truck was so quiet and smooth that I could now hear the other rattles I'd need to chase down.

• Attempted a repair of the fan which wobbles on the water pump shaft and makes noise.

One sound that has been vexing me comes from the wobbling fan and pulley assembly. I had it briefly fixed for a mere $.49 when I replaced the mashed up machine key. But the sound is back now. I think I'll just replace the fan and pulley when I get some money together. This  fan is a fairly heavy four-bladed one. It seems to me that every time the engine increases or decreases rmp it would put considerable torque on the fan assembly thus straining the key. We'll see. My '28 doesn't overheat even in SoCal and it has a two-bladed fan. So I'll swap it out and hope for the best.

The above represents only a partial list of the stuff I've worked on these past few months. So where to from here?

Briefly, here are the items still on the punch list:

• Solve the problem of hard steering. Rebuild the steering box and, if I have to, replace the king pins.
• Fix the oil leak that I suspect comes from the rear main seal. This leak is huge!
• Replace all the tires. They are so cracked that my neighbor won't ride in the car with me.
• Replace one badly grooved brake drum. And clean up each brake mechanism.
• Replace the fan.
• Replace the head light reflectors.
• Assess the condition of the distributor body.
• Properly mount the coil.
• Fix the bind in the passenger window that makes the otherwise well-working mechanism hard to operate.
• Refit the doors which latch so poorly that they potentially could fly open around any corner. Sure hope this can be done with shims. 
• Replace the leaf springs and shackles. The car tilts to the driver's side more than any Model A I've ever seen.
• Replace the wood in the bed and build a lumber rack so I can get my stuff home from Home Depot! I'm looking forward to this and will probably save it for "last" if there is such a thing.