DrinkMan
Member
Excuse this long post. It is a summary of a few years.
About 3 years ago we bought a Ford Model A. As you can see from my signature line, we have a lot of experience with older (but nothing as old as a Model A) cars. My wife and I do all the maintenance and keep all of them in top notch running order. I over estimated our ability to select a quality car and under estimated the effort to keep one in great condition.
Not going to address our mistakes in selection of the car but when we started we found that the car had a top speed of 25 mph, backfired constantly, had trouble starting and very poor brakes. We dove in and started doing small projects figuring each project would get us a perfect car.
Luckily, despite our naivete, we had some great resources to draw upon. This forum, our local club, and we only live 25 miles from Mike's Affordable A parts. First brakes needed rebuilding. Then, we started addressing the ignition system. Distributor wire, pop-out switch wire intermittently shorting out, and drive gear worn all hit us. Fix one, find another. Rebuilt carburetor, clean out fuel tank, and replaced gaskets on fuel gauge. A few things broke during the work - Bendix spring, light switch, etc...
Frustration was very high. We would get it running but not quite good enough (to my satisfaction). I would drive it to car shows and put a For Sale sign on it. After every drive, the car would need to have something fixed. Water pump, starter switch, condenser, and more. We would walk away from it and not touch it for months (it had us intimidated).
Last week, I finally thought I had everything working and sure enough, it wouldn't hold idle and ran worse than it did the week before. I contacted a local club member and asked for assistance. He came over, started the car up, ran it hard, checked each plug for spark, and then drove it with a vengeance (showed that car who was boss). He pointed out a couple of minor things, proclaimed that I had done a good job fixing it and left us to correct those things.
So, during the week, I changed the heat range of the plugs, installed a screen in the fuel tank after blowing it out, and replaced the carb since the GAV seat was beyond hope.
This video is the result. (I drove it 50 mph, brakes work, accelerates strongly)
https://youtu.be/IiYNZ7NBmUk
Now we have a serviceable Model A that we can enjoy. This is what we wanted when we bought it so long ago. We learned a lot (for example, just because you can rebuild an Opel engine, replace an entire Alfa Romeo brake system, and balance dual side draft carbs does not make you qualified to work on a Model A). So to all of you that are struggling, just keep finding those small problems and fixing them one at a time. Soon there will not be any more gremlins to vanquish. I'm looking forward to now only fixing things that break "normally" and doing some more upgrades (like turn signals).
Some picture of the journey:
Again, thanks to Hal, Harold, Mike & Erich at Mike's Affordable, and all the posts in this forum that I searched out and read of everyone adventures.
About 3 years ago we bought a Ford Model A. As you can see from my signature line, we have a lot of experience with older (but nothing as old as a Model A) cars. My wife and I do all the maintenance and keep all of them in top notch running order. I over estimated our ability to select a quality car and under estimated the effort to keep one in great condition.
Not going to address our mistakes in selection of the car but when we started we found that the car had a top speed of 25 mph, backfired constantly, had trouble starting and very poor brakes. We dove in and started doing small projects figuring each project would get us a perfect car.
Luckily, despite our naivete, we had some great resources to draw upon. This forum, our local club, and we only live 25 miles from Mike's Affordable A parts. First brakes needed rebuilding. Then, we started addressing the ignition system. Distributor wire, pop-out switch wire intermittently shorting out, and drive gear worn all hit us. Fix one, find another. Rebuilt carburetor, clean out fuel tank, and replaced gaskets on fuel gauge. A few things broke during the work - Bendix spring, light switch, etc...
Frustration was very high. We would get it running but not quite good enough (to my satisfaction). I would drive it to car shows and put a For Sale sign on it. After every drive, the car would need to have something fixed. Water pump, starter switch, condenser, and more. We would walk away from it and not touch it for months (it had us intimidated).
Last week, I finally thought I had everything working and sure enough, it wouldn't hold idle and ran worse than it did the week before. I contacted a local club member and asked for assistance. He came over, started the car up, ran it hard, checked each plug for spark, and then drove it with a vengeance (showed that car who was boss). He pointed out a couple of minor things, proclaimed that I had done a good job fixing it and left us to correct those things.
So, during the week, I changed the heat range of the plugs, installed a screen in the fuel tank after blowing it out, and replaced the carb since the GAV seat was beyond hope.
This video is the result. (I drove it 50 mph, brakes work, accelerates strongly)
https://youtu.be/IiYNZ7NBmUk
Now we have a serviceable Model A that we can enjoy. This is what we wanted when we bought it so long ago. We learned a lot (for example, just because you can rebuild an Opel engine, replace an entire Alfa Romeo brake system, and balance dual side draft carbs does not make you qualified to work on a Model A). So to all of you that are struggling, just keep finding those small problems and fixing them one at a time. Soon there will not be any more gremlins to vanquish. I'm looking forward to now only fixing things that break "normally" and doing some more upgrades (like turn signals).
Some picture of the journey:
Again, thanks to Hal, Harold, Mike & Erich at Mike's Affordable, and all the posts in this forum that I searched out and read of everyone adventures.
