Recent content by Richard in NC

You can easily measure what a shortened arm will do. Jack up the car. Disconnect the drag link at the pitman arm and measure the linear movement of it wheels lock to lock. Then make a soapstone or chalk mark on the pitman arm where the new ball will be. Lock to lock strike a vertical line on the...

The 7 tooth box must have less built in degrees of rotation because the shortened arm works great with a 2 tooth 1931 box and no loss of turning radius.

I used Grant rings in my last build. I wondered if Hastings were like they used to be 40 yrs ago. Back then you only used them in old junk engines that really needed rebored. They had so much tension they would seat in almost any cylinder. Downside was they didn't last. I hope they are not like...

Take a 2 or 3 ft length of garden hose and put one end to your good ear and use the other end around the exhaust manifold to locate the leak if there is one. Another way is have your wife hold a rag over the tailpipe while the motor is running and if there is a leak at the manifold you will find it.

Handcrank??? Pull car down road in gear ??? Jack up back wheel and belt to a steam engine ???

Some people use the primary winding of an old ignition coil for the resister. Mount it in the frame where it won't be seen.

I believe I read that modern ATF has some amount of silicone in it. If this is true, don't run it in the fuel on any late model vehicle. If any of it gets through the engine into the exhaust system without burning, the silicone will destroy the oxygen sensor very quickly.

When I was a kid in the mid fifties, there were a few A models still being driven daily. I also saw a bunch of them in the junkyards. I always wanted an old car and had a couple of 30's Plymouths which were very good cars. Then, 30 years later I wanted a car and decided to not settle for less...

Many years ago I had a "strip down" made out of an International Scout slant 4. I was re-ringing it and after I got it torn down and cleaned the weather turned off bad. The engine sat under a shed roof opened up for several days. When I started back to work on it the cylinders had a thin surface...

I knew an oldtimer that said when he was a kid that if they were at a gathering like a church picnic they would pick up a rear wheel on a T model and set it down in a watermelon rind. He said if the tire had very little tread on it that the car will not move out of it's tracks.

Hey, That looks like the Durbin Rocket. Me and a couple of my friends were there in Sept. We rode the Cass railroad all the way up and back. Cass is near Durbin and uses Shay locomotives. We love steam trains and also drive A models and pick string instruments. It don't get much better.

I made my own mounts and used Ford Pinto shocks. They were cheap and they work fine. On the rear cant them in at the top, probably 20 or 30 degrees. This helps with side sway a little bit.

My spark and throttle rods rattled and i drilled a small hole and sprayed in some Great Stuff expanding foam.

Thanks Bob, I always try to think outside the box.

I have always enjoyed looking through junk and reclaiming whatever I could. In my mind a person that will do that is showing a special character trait. All my friends are great people and almost all of them love junk. When I was dating my wife 38 years ago, We were sitting quietly in her house...