How often does a Model A have a need for a tow truck?

modela@aol.com

modela@aol.com

Well-known member
My local Model A club just had a picnic meeting this past Saurday to start off our new touring season.

One of the members was talking about having a front axle that was all twisted and bent. Discussion turned to how the tow trucks would often put a hook or chain on the axle and yank on them causing these axle issues.

The discussion then turned to who had to get towed back home after their Model A died on the road and why.

Here is the listing of what the failures were to kill off their cars on the road:

1.) Broken rear axle
2.) Sheared rear axle key
3.) Failure of an original universal joint
4.) Failure of a modern repro ignition cable. ( Plastic insert at spring end softened up then not making contact with disti.
5.) Crack in head causing severe overheating
6.) Broken fuel line caused by vibration
7.) Bottom half of Zenith carburetor falling off while driving
8.) Original cast clutch arm breaking
9.) Loss of fuel when the silver foil coin sized seal off of a bottle of Heet fell into the gas tank being sucked over the fuel outlet.
10.) Modern "leak proof" water pump failing when the adjusting nut lip seal pushed out.

There is a flip side also as there were no stories of bad condensers, coils, or point issues. Also no flat tires or running out of gas. Overall not too bad for a group of guys that have driven their Model A's thousands of miles over the last 30 years....

What issues have you folks experienced to make you hitch a ride on a flat bed truck. Let me know what to add to this listing....
 
I needed a tow home two years ago after never needing on in 58 years of deiving my A. The cause was bad gas. My own fault for leaving gas in the tank over the winter without Stabil.
It was a flatbed tow but I still made sure the tow guy didn’t attach anything to my front axle.
 
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I have been driving my 45B Coupe since 1962 (50,000 + miles) and not once did it need a tow truck. On the other hand, my 190A Victoria needed a ride home on a flat bed once in 1993 because the threads on the left rear axle stripped and the wheel came off.
Lesson learned from the 190A is do not torque the axle nut more than 50 lbs-ft.
 
Bob Bidonde said:
I have been driving my 45B Coupe since 1962 (50,000 + miles) and not once did it need a tow truck. On the other hand, my 190A Victoria needed a ride home on a flat bed once in 1993 because the threads on the left rear axle stripped and the wheel came off.
Lesson learned from the 190A is do not torque the axle nut more than 50 lbs-ft.
Click to expand...




Axle nut or lug nut ?
 
A member on tour with us had to ride a rollback home when his electronic ignition failed and no one had a module or a spare distributer.
 
In 50,000 miles, I have had to put the A on a truck twice. First time was after it stood for hours in pouring rain and the top of the motor got wet through the middle hinge. If I had time, it would have eventually dried but the forecast was for 3 more days of rain. The second time was poor diagnostics by me. The distributor body was breaking down and causing the notorious #3/#4 cross fire. We were on our way home from a run of 12,000 miles and I'd lost patience with it after a few thousand miles of it misbehaving.
FWIW, once I got it home, I looked deeper into it and found the problem. I had a spare body with me and a rotor button so I replaced them both. I only got a few miles and it stopped again. After a tow home behind my wife's modern car, I found that the lug inside the rotor button was missing. It was not broken off, it was never there. That allowed the button to spin on the shaft causing the timing to be all over the place. It sounded like WW3 when it stopped and I was in traffic so I couldn't do much on it where it died, otherwise, I would have found that problem and fixed it in a flash.
Sometimes, no amount of preparation/maintenance can prevent a "failure to proceed".
 
If you must transport your broken Model A, the safest and best way is on a flatbed truck.

In the case of my Victoria, the car was new to me and I foolishly drove it before thoroughly inspecting it. The nut securing the drum to the left rear axle stripped-off. It was held on by a cotter pin!
 
After high speed runs through the hilly turns to Napier city, I pulled up to the first roundabout and, as I tried to turn, the steering wheel came up towards me and the car went straight on. I pushed the wheel down hard and made it round the roundabout but there was a terrible shimmy as i went down the road. At a max speed about 5 mph I made it to our hotel, where I parked the car for the duration and had it flat-decked 300 miles back to my workshop.
Somehow the bottom thrust bearing in my 7 tooth box had let all the rollers escape, and the steering wheel was climbing up and down the sector instead of rotating it.
I fitted a Gemmer box from a later car and steering feels much nicer, but there were no real symptoms of impending failure in the old box - just 3 inches of slack at the rim, which most of the Model A's I had observed seemed to have.
Lesson learnt, and a lucky escape. And rather exciting for the lady traffic warden that was desparately trying to prevent me from going straight through her roundabout barriers and into the cordoned-off parking area for the coming veteran parade cars!
SAJ in NZ
 
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