[Archie Cheda]

After sampling every decade of Ford's from the 40's through the 60's, I decided that I should experience a Model A and bought the 1930 Coupe shown in my avatar. Nothing too far from the norm on this forum, so I have not posted much. I have done a fair amount of "wrenching" on Ford sixes and V-8's and was even a dealer mechanic for a short time in 1969, but this is my first four-cylinder Ford, although I have done numerous VW engines. I have already read literally thousands of posts on this forum and feel like I know what to expect when working on my A. The purpose of this post is to share a few things that I have experienced that could be of use to some members of this forum. I am not recommending anyone do anything that I am doing, but I always like to "close-the-loop" and tie what is going on inside an engine to symptoms. To the highly experienced, there will probably be little new, but for those relatively new to Model A's, I hope to be of use, and in some way repay the forum for all the information it has provided me. If you do not like long posts, please skip out now . . .

After many car purchases, I have gotten to be fairly good at determining the condition of a vehicle from a thorough inspection and test drive. I did not have any previous experience driving a Model A, but my coupe seemed to be in reasonable running order -- it had no "drive-ability" problems. There were no abnormal signs until I was checking for blow-by with the breather cap off and with the hand-throttle holding the engine at a hot, fast idle. Everything sounded normal, and then there was, at camshaft speed, a "click, click, clack, CLACK!", followed by silence. This repeated every minute or so. Based on this abnormal noise and steering & brake issues (all resolved by adjustments), I offered the seller $1,500 less than he was asking and my offer was accepted. The seller is an old friend and, because of the steering & brake issues, he delivered the coupe to my home on a borrowed trailer. I then drove my "new baby" (still not insured) from the street to my back-yard shop.

During the few days between my first sight of the coupe and my actual purchase, the seller pulled the valve cover to see if there was a broken valve spring -- no such luck. Once I had the car in my possession, I decided to pull off the "inspection cover" and check out the camshaft timing gear, to see if the timing cover spring & plunger were not controlling the cam position, and to see if there was any issue with the gear. I was not disappointed. This engine was re-worked in the 1980's -- I now know that it was not rebuilt, at least by my definition. My seller did not have any details, but it was obvious that the engine did not have a large number of miles on it since it was apart. Anyway, you can see the condition of the gear in the pics below -- it was a "macerated" gear and despite having at least one third missing from 24 of the 50 teeth, it had not jumped timing. At this point, I knew I would not be driving the car at all until I installed a new pair of metal timing gears. Because I would have to drop the pan to clean out all the bits of gear teeth, I decided to pull the engine and check it out more carefully.

The first thing I learned, upon dropping the pan, was that the crank had four counter weights welded on and had been balanced. This was unexpected and I decided to check the cam and (non-Ford) head to see what else this engine had in it beyond stock.

Immediately after pulling the head, I looked at the cylinder bores in the block -- they were not the low-mileage surfaces I expected, but had a series of parallel ridges at the same pitch as the ring spacing. The marks you can seen in the first pic below can easily be felt with the fingers and there are places that easily catch a finger-nail -- these are at least a thousandth of an inch deep. The engine is sleeved back to standard bore, so it looks as if I will be boring the sleeves to .020" and buying pistons and rings. I believe that this engine sat for a decade or more and the rings rusted to the cylinder walls. There may be times when this is a minor problem, cured by a short tow, but I think that, more often than spoken of, the result is damaged cylinder walls. The seller told me that the engine did not burn oil. During my testing there was no smoke from the tailpipe and very little blow-by at idle. (I do expect that it probably would have smoked from the tailpipe and had blow-by if it was run up a steep grade under load.)

This happened in a dry climate. I expect that the owner was starting the engine occasionally while it was in storage before not running it for the long period. Better to not start it at all if it is not going to be run until thoroughly warmed up. Also better to put oil in the cylinders if it cannot be started. Also better to use the hand-crank to turn it over on an annual basis to redistribute the oil on the cylinder walls.

I rough-measured the volume of a combustion chamber -- some 250 mL. Not a high compression head. If anything, it was lower compression ratio than stock. The combustion chamber measures about 1-3/8" deep and I would appreciate any feedback about this. It appears to have the same shape as the standard Model A head -- neither heart nor wedge shape. The marking on it are: "6-16-43", "AL", & "Made in USA". (It is a cast iron head very similar to stock in appearance.)

A check of the cam lift showed around .257" lift at the valve -- with .287" being stock, the cam was either worn or a dubious re-grind. I am now considering a 5.5:1 head and a Bill Stipe IB330 cam. The valves all seemed to be seating well, but were original keeper style with two-piece guides. Some valves were snug in their guides, but many were way too loose, even for an 80+ year old car. A rough measurement showed over .030" of wobble with the valve open.

The valves also showed almost no margin from having been ground too many times -- strange in an engine that had such a nice-looking crank. (For those who do not know, the margin is the cylindrical periphery of the valve head. If the valve's angled seating surface is ground too many times the margin disappears and there is a sharp edge. On exhaust valves, these sharp corners can glow red hot and you know that having such a "glow-plug" in the combustion chamber is not beneficial.)

I am saving the "best" for last: on #2 exhaust valve, the hardened seat came out with the valve. The insert actually has a clearance in its bore of over a thousandth of an inch. In a flathead four engine, gravity is helping keep the seat in position. Now I know where the "CLACK" noise came from and am very thankful that I did not put the car on the road to do my troubleshooting. (Again for the less experienced: think of the loose seat insert bouncing around until one time it bounces high enough to leave its bore. The brittle seat would them be hammered by the valve until it broke into pieces which would than proceed to take out the piston and perhaps the cylinder wall.)

I still have to pull the "bottom end" apart, but I am prepared for just about anything after what I have found in the rest of the engine . . .

Archie