[grcalva]

Whenever I read a maintenance instruction that says "Using Ford Tool No. . . . .," I wonder what it looks like. Ford presumes you have one, so you know what it is.

Often it turns out to look just like a bent screwdriver (because a straight one won't fit in the space), or a regular drum brake adjusting tool with 1/4" shaved off one side, and so on.

My personal connection with the Ford Model A is from before I was born. In the early 1950s, my father worked as a mechanic for a car owner in the Three Quarter Midget Racing Association. One day the driver showed up hung over/drunk when he was scheduled to drive the qualifying run - no qualification run, no entry - so my father was asked to try his hand, just to get around the dirt oval track. It was a cut-down Model A flathead four, with a Miller overhead valve conversion. To save weight, rather than cut the driveshaft, they took out the differential, put a gear reducer/sprocket on the end of the transmission, and put in a chain drive. He rolled the chain-drive car, and the chain came up through the guard. Between his legs. He already had seven children, and was told that was it. I was No. 10 of 11.

Since he was the mechanic, I've always wondered how much of the damage was due to his driving, and how much to the modifications to the frame/drivetrain, which he probably also did, but I suspect his driving mostly, because he was a virtuoso of improvisation - he taught me how to weld by reconstructing the front axle of a 1937 BF Avery tractor, which was a cast piece that had been cracked completely in two, using coat hangers as welding rod. It held intact from 1970, when we put it back together, until he sold the tractor in 2001.