Am I the Only Who Cheats During Maintenance?

[Ed in Maine]

I just replaced the four bladed fan on my Model A. I've had the new two bladed aluminum fan for several months. There was some noise coming from the front of the car but I couldn't tell if it was the four bladed fan or the generator. It was a good time to do the fan replacement job. I got the fan pulled from the water pump and mounted the new fan. It fit very closely but it went together except for the castle nut on the shaft. I tightened the nut as far as I dared, but didn't like the fit of the nut. I cheated, and took a hack saw and deepened the slot for the cotter pin. I almost felt myself looking around the shop to see if anyone was watching me! I even took the next smallest cotter pin to complete the installation. I hope I don't pay the price for lousy work. Am I the only one who occassionally has to do this?? By the way, the noise went away and the new fan looks great. Ed

[quickchange]

did you put a thin washer on before the nut ?? if not go back & do it , the nut will chew into the alloy & it may come loose .

[ronn]

its only you............

[Bob C]

X2 on a thin hardened washer. I lapped the fan to the shaft with valve grinding compound then checked it with prussian blue.

[Flathead]

Originally Posted by Bob C

X2 on a thin hardened washer. I lapped the fan to the shaft with valve grinding compound then checked it with prussian blue.

There's a name for that.

[Marshall V. Daut]

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If we only had to deal with genuine Ford parts while making repairs, it wouldn't have been necessary to make this modification. Ford service bulletins were borderline hysterical about people using "spurious" non-Ford gyp parts even back when the Model A was new. And many of those "gyp" parts 100 years ago were better than some of the reproduction parts we are now obliged to use.
In your case, you probably had to use a reproduction water pump rebuild kit, a re-cored or reproduction radiator and a reproduction fan blade, which may or may not be of good quality (lots of two-blade fan iterations sold to us over the years), but is NOT a genuine Ford replacement part. Putting all these repro parts together to make a functioning and reliable cooling system will require at least some degree of corrective modifications. You did what had to be done in 2025 to make 1928-31 Model A components work. No shame.
Marshall

[alexiskai]

Originally Posted by Flathead

There's a name for that.

“Being a machinist”?

[al's28/33]

It's not a matter of cheating but rather a question of maintaining safety and reliability in your (our) antique vehicles while being out on public roads .... I have cheated too, but where it's a question of being SAFE, I would rather err on the conservative side and be SAFE doing the repair or upgrade the correct way and coming as close as possible to what is considered a safe and reliable long lasting fix.

[Bob Bidonde]

You need to be resourceful when owning a Model "A".

[Richard Knight]

There is a very fine line between a hack job and being creative or "cheating". Getting to the root cause of a problem is often the challenge.knowing what is right or wrong takes some research/education/experience. having the right combination of knowledge AND the right tools is often not in the equation. This is where having an experienced model A buddy and or clubs can make a huge difference in the outcome/safety of a repair. The preponderance of almost right parts only clouds the issue. Just remember there is no substitute for experience and knowledge. It behooves anyone who is attempting repairs to seek those out. Even with a model A the problems/repairs can be more complex than appears. The root cause of a problem is often masked by layers of other problems.

[Marshall V. Daut]

"...the root cause of a problem is often masked by layers of other problems..."

...and ignored or glossed over by subsequent owners over the years. WE are the ones left holding the bag to undo past sins heaped upon our Model A's. It seems that I spend more time UN-doing hack work than I do making the actual repair. Some of these "repairs" are ingeniously stupid and must have required more time and effort to do than to have actually made the repair properly in the first place. And these idiots reproduced and voted???
Marshall

[BlueSunoco]

Originally Posted by Marshall V. Daut

"...the root cause of a problem is often masked by layers of other problems..."
Some of these "repairs" are ingeniously stupid and must have required more time and effort to do than to have actually made the repair properly in the first place. And these idiots reproduced and voted???
Marshall

[JayJay]

Originally Posted by Marshall V. Daut

"...the root cause of a problem is often masked by layers of other problems..."

...and ignored or glossed over by subsequent owners over the years. WE are the ones left holding the bag to undo past sins heaped upon our Model A's. It seems that I spend more time UN-doing hack work than I do making the actual repair. Some of these "repairs" are ingeniously stupid and must have required more time and effort to do than to have actually made the repair properly in the first place. And these idiots reproduced and voted???
Marshall

Amen to this! And the sad part, I’ve run into this situation (poor or just plain absent work) from folks who sell themselves as “restorers”. Gives the excellent practitioners a bad name, especially when they are asked to explain why their estimates of costs are so much higher than the chowderheads’.