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.