Recent content by philosofriend

The starter shaft can get bent more easily than you might think.

If it ran great last year your first suspects should be things that you changed. (Or junk that came loose and went into a jet when you removed the fuel line.) I would concentrate on things that you changed, not things that are the same as when it ran good last year. Things that you changed...

Are you familiar with the H.A.M.B. forum? It is part of the Jalopy Journal. You are doing great to start here at Ford Barn, but at HAMB you will find lots of folks with hobbies like making hot rod bodies out of never-before-together parts. If you look in their parts for sale you might get some...

My mother liked to tell how she helped her dad with the Model A on 15 degree mornings. They drained the oil into a pan, heated it on the wood stove, put it back in and hand-cranked it. I do mine just like Marshall V. Daut and Old 31 say. I put the hand throttle down a couple of notches and open...

Top off the lubricant. It is easier to feel the effects of the adjustments at the steering wheel if you jack the front wheels off the ground. On all three adjustments, beware of making them too tight. If you feel even the slightest roughness or increase in effort needed to turn the wheel, you...

Re: Modified A will not Calihute The painting suggests that you should make sure the engine is well grounded. I run a wire from where the heavy gauge battery cable is bolted down to a head bolt. Copper is a much better conductor than steel and the distributer needs good electricity at high...

With that long custom shift lever and the apparent clutch linkage on the right-hand side, I almost believe that the person who made that boat wanted to shift gears. I know almost nothing about boat propellors, but for airplanes the invention of practical variable pitch props in the 1920s...

Re: “B” Grind Cam What muffler? The old reproductions are more restrictive. Recognize them by the curve from vertical to horizontal having a smaller diameter than the straight parts of the pipe, caused by the tooling that bent the curve into the pipe. The Aries ("Authentic") muffler costs more...

Just yesterday I removed the rubber radius ball that I installed 30 years ago. It was still in perfect shape with no softening, shredding or distorting. It was installed with the complete kit, which is an important point. Our club has an annual spring safety check and we have found many...

It is interesting how relaxed some backyard mechanics were in the Bad Old Days about doing things like bashing headers in for clearance, or cutting a big U-shaped hunk of a frame crossmember out when installing dual mufflers.

Fuel delivery test: Remove the drain from the carburetor, open the gasoline shutoff. Gas should come out like a giant urinating. If it is more like a gerbil, you have a problem. This tests the entire fuel system including the float valve. The hardest part of this test is catching the gas in a...

I live close to the Gilmore Car Museum. Thirty years ago they had a Bugatti race car that I spent many happy hours examining, including lying on the floor underneath it. You know how the Model A engine has those good-looking domed-head bolts? The Bugatti had just about every fastener on the...

It is generally better to observe a crash from inside the car rather than being outside sliding on the pavement.

When the steering box is bolted in the frame there are three adjustments you can make. With the front wheels off the ground none of them should be turned so tight that you can feel even the smallest increase in effort needed to turn the steering wheel. If you do, back it off the smallest amount...

Fresh and filtered air is sucked into the crankcase. Then air mixed with blow-bye gasses is sucked out of the (other side of the) crankcase and into the intake manifold.