Dang, dang, dang,+*^%&$#+@

[BILL WILLIAMSON]

We all have them, what's YOUR most memorable thing you have done to or with your Model A that you TOTALLY REGRET! (+&$@!&%+%)
Bill W.

[Tim]

Sold It. But another this way comes.


Tim

[rossofozini]

Snapped a bolt off in the flywheel, then snapped of an ezyout. Dogs went back in the house while I discussed the problem alone under the car.

[BRENT in 10-uh-C]

...ummm, decided to just build a 'Driver' out of it!!


(jk of course.)

.

[CarlG]

Scrapped a perfectly good AA 280A, not realizing at the time (50+ years ago) that it was only one of 82 ever built.

[Purdy Swoft]

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Put a sixty horse flathead in a decent august 1930 Briggs town sedan back in 63. I will always regret ruining a car like I probably will never have again. That little sixty horse engine was such a purty is why I did it. Driveability suffered greatly and originality went to hell. Not that i'm a purist to the point of insanity. If I could just have it back the way it was before , it wouldn't matter if it had a Marvel carb and a model 46 generator.

[Steve Wastler]

Making the trunk a rumble on my roadster & letting my brother spray a degreaser under the hood, stripped every bit of paint off everything it touched!!

[Farrell In Vancouver]

Left it parked at the local mall............Kid smacked the top or the drivers front fender with his skate board...........so many hours to get it straight and sanded till my arm fell off. Oh well, its just a driver ............sigh

[steve s]

missed opportunities in my youth.

[mach0415]

Originally Posted by CarlG

Scrapped a perfectly good AA 280A, not realizing at the time (50+ years ago) that it was only one of 82 ever built.

There goes the retirement fund. That even hurts me, my friend. ouch!

[Ron in Quincy]

When I was 15 I purchased a 28 Roadster from my neighbor for $ 50.oo. The body and fenders were were perfect. Using a vaccume cleaner spray gun I painted the entire body and fenders Powder Blue. I did not like the fact that the windshield wouldn't fold down like the 30-31s so I would drive it around with no windshield. After World War 2 started cars were scarce and a man offered me $500.oo for the Roadster so I sold it. The funny thing I had never got the top and top irons out of the garage of the neighbor. Several days after I sold the A it came down the street with a new white top on it, the body and fenders were still powder blue. Often wondered what ever happened to that Roadster ?

Ron

[Richard/Ca]

Pulling The engine out to have it rebuilt 3 years ago. Can't afford it now so there it sits.

[SSsssteamer]

Dummest thing that I have ever done with my model A was in 1972, to drive our nicely restored 1929 A Tudor through a flooded road. The water was just up to the inside floor boards. The carb never did get into the water. The model A never faltered through oit all. It must have taken me about two years to finally get everything completely dried out again. Door panels and more were wet. It was terrible. The flooded road was much deeper than what I had guessed it was. Never again.........

[Bob-A]

Bought my "fully" restored '29 roadster for more money then I care to admit. A "supposed" Model-A buddy sold it to me. I should have listened
to my inner-self on the visible problems, but I was "dazzeled" by the shiny
paint. And the concept that I was buying a "turn-key" restored car: a dream come true..... Man o' man, did I ever get screwed!!!

Bob-A

[Steve Plucker]

Repainting my 1929 Standard Coupe rockmoss green and vagabond green (because I liked green) when originally it was black...went back to black 3 years later.

Pluck

[Vanspeed]

True story, two years ago I traded my 29 coupe to a guy a couple towns away for his 39 coupe. I thought I was getting a great deal but after not being able to sleep the first night, I contacted him asking if we could not go through with the trade and he said flat out NO. I didn't sleep the second night so I called him again and said I have to have my car back and he told me that he would have sold the 39 for 12,000 so If I can come up with that, I can have my car back. I sold the 39 in a week for 13,000 and went and got my 29 back plus had 1000 in my pocket. I would never ever offer it for sale again, it was the most stressful week of my life.

[SDJason]

Well,
I've only owned my Town Sedan for about six months now, so I haven't had a lot of time to build up too many regrets -

but right now the one so far was giving my 10 year old niece a ride in it - kids today have been deprived the pleasure of being able to open and close windows (thanks to the parent cut-off switch that's pretty much standard nowadays), so she was making up for that with a vengeance.

Just a few seconds of vigorously using the right rear window, and it now won't lower more than a few inches. For awhile, the door also wouldn't latch closed - I was able to fiddle with things enough to at least fix that, but really fixing it means tearing the door apart to get inside...

[Dave in Boise]

Hmm.. After seeing that there was a bit of grease residue in the radiator of an A I just purchased, I decided to drain the coolant and fill it up with 1/2 Super Purple Degreaser, 1/2 water, run the motor to operating temp and then block off the airflow to get it really good and hot.. Worked like a dream! The radiator was all shiny inside and cooled so much better..

The Mistake? Using a Soap Based Cleaner.. Apparently Lawrence Welk used the same mixture in his bubble machine in the 50-70's .. I thought it was very well flushed out, running a hose into the top and then draining it out at the same time while the motor was running should have given the block and radiator a very good rinsing.. Well, it didn't

I filled her up with new 50/50 antifreeze and being well pleased with myself, noticed that it indeed ran much cooler.. Well, took her up a 6% pass not too far away and once I got the motor turning really well and generating the heat, the temp started to climb - a lot. Apparently the ghost of that super purple degreaser came to visit me.. The radiator fill started to foam like an overworked racehorse from beneath my motormeter and spew all over the windshield with great gobs of lovely foam. I'm sure it was quite a sight from the outside, but could not tell from the inside as my radiator had pretty well foamed over my windshield before I could get stopped..

Well, I opened the cap while she was running and got a stream of foam about 3 ft tall to eject right out of the top of the radiator, and then the engine seemed to cool down a bit.. It seems that there was anough soap in the degreaser that it seemed to soak into the block and come out once the motor got good and hot.. also the prestone seemed to be encouraging the foam. The waterpump likely got cavitating, and with a pile of foam rather than coolant to work on, caused the waterflow to cease until the engine started to pump the fliud out of it due to the heat expansion, and when the hot water got up under the foam and finally into the impeller of the pump, the ejection of the foam was quite energetic.

Once she was through frothing I poured about a gallon of fresh water into her and proceeded home, sitll foaming, but a bit less. My wife had a good sense of humor, even refering to the car as 'Cujo' for the remainder of the outing..

We got home, rinsed more and even after adding fresh 50/50 still got foam, but a bit less, so this summer, she will be out and about with water and a bit of antirust and pump lube in the mix. Drained after each run and refilled again before the next run.. The head and gasket all check out and there are no noticable bubbles with the water mixture in place.

Moral of the story.. Use Simple Green or another non-foaming degreaser to rid your radiator of grease next time.

- Dave

[Christoph]

He Dave - You are not allone.....(see the pic)

I dont regret, as this is funny -

I regret that i had to grow 50 years old, till i bought my first "A"
( I am not willing to sell it for the next 50 years )

[CarlG]

#2 for me:
I regret having being sucked into buying an "EZ-Steer" unit for my truck without fully investigating the aleged 900 units in use. (this was BFB -- before Ford Barn)