Jim Scanlon (deceased)
Senior Staff 
FORUM CHAPLAIN
Commander South Texas outpost of the County Sligo Squadron
Currently: Offline
Posts: 5,075 
Location:
Joined: July 2007
Retired: USAF
NBA: Spurs
NFL: Niners
MLB: Giants
NHL: Penguins
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Post by Jim Scanlon (deceased) on Dec 4, 2010 2:22:21 GMT 9
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Post by Jim on Dec 4, 2010 3:21:31 GMT 9
In 1949-50 when I was just a 15-16 year old kid, me and my brothers use to have an old model T truck, without tires that would sit on the rails of the Erie RR that ran by our house..... With a piece of pipe as a pry bar, we would get the wheels up on the rails and drive into town and park it in some trees alongside the tracks, or we could go the other way and go about 5 miles to the creek and go fishing or swimming.......... We would collect pop bottles (.02 cents for the small ones and a nickle for the quart size) to get our gasoline money and steal some of my dad's Lucky Strike cigarettes so we could ride in style................... I believe the RR cops caught my brother with it on the tracks and it disappeared....... We paid, I think 15.00 for it because reverse didn't always work........... I believe we used an electric fence battery for power................. Damn, that was fun a long time ago.................. BTW a piston and rings for that engine would run about 100.00 a piece today....................... I f you could find one...
The Old Sarge
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Post by jimpadgett on Dec 4, 2010 23:32:23 GMT 9
I remember a Model A modified as a garden tractor belonging to a neighbor in the '50s. Great fun to tool around the farm road near our houses and to go to the swimming hole nearby. Had to back up the hill coming back (gravity fuel flow).
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Jim Scanlon (deceased)
Senior Staff
FORUM CHAPLAIN
Commander South Texas outpost of the County Sligo Squadron
Currently: Offline
Posts: 5,075
Location:
Joined: July 2007
Retired: USAF
NBA: Spurs
NFL: Niners
MLB: Giants
NHL: Penguins
|
Post by Jim Scanlon (deceased) on Dec 5, 2010 2:29:03 GMT 9
I learned to drive in a 1931 Model A Ford, at McDoel, California.
It was my cousins "shop" car.
He owned a gas station/garage/welding shop, and used the Model A for all kinds of things.
The trunk lid was removed and a pickup box was made of wood and bolted to the floor.
I used the car for my fishing trips up in to the mountains around McDoel.
Because of the gravity feed fuel flow from the gas tank, which sat in front of the windshield, I carried a 5 gallon can of gas in the back.
That way I could fill the tank, and drive straight up the hills, instead of having to back up them.
The Model A had a feature that made it nice for getting three people on the front seat, ours only had one seat, as it was a coupe.
If you pulled up on the gear shift, it would allow you to push it forward under the dash. Pretty neat.
But, you had to stop in order to put it back in place. Unless you wanted to take a chance on stripping a gear. No syncromesh on those cars.
This was all in 1951 when I was 16.
The 4 banger engine of the Model A was pretty reliable, but took a lot of tinkering to keep it so.
One of the major problems was the king pins on the front wheels.
They wore out pretty quickly and needed new bushings on a regular basis.
If they were getting bad, it was easy to tell.
At about 40 MPH, really flying in that car, the front wheels would start to hop around.
When it started doing it's shimmy dance at about 30, then it was time to jack it up and fix them.
Still the Model A was a charm to drive.
In San Francisco there were lots of Fords, and other cars, with gravity feed fuel tanks.
So, it was pretty normal to see people backing up some of the cities hills.
You could modify the T Model and the A Model, and put an electric fuel pump on them, but it didn't work very well, as the fuel outlet from the tank was at the back. So you needed to keep lots of gas in the tank even for an electric pump to work.
In 1932, the problem was solved, when Ford moved the tank to the rear of the car, and put a mechanical fuel pump on the V8.
Jim Too
:god_bless_usa
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