Pictures from Little Dearborn Today

[Tom Wesenberg]

I use 2 head studs with nuts screwed on the end to act as guide pins when I remove a flywheel. I work the flywheel loose and onto the studs, then remove the nuts, get a good grip on the flywheel, and carefully lower it to the ground. This morning I went to Little Dearborn to buy a couple head studs and took 7 pictures while I was there.

They have a bulletin board as you walk into the entrance, so I read that and took 3 pictures of nice A's for sale. To help get young people interested in Model A's 2 of these are very affordable. The first picture would be great to get a young person on the road at an affordable price. If you have trouble making out the number, it starts with 763. The Phaeton also looks nice if you have more money.

Our club's cutaway engine is on display in the showroom, so I took four pictures that may help someone with some questions. Notice the 4th valve spring back has fewer coils, and is a replacement spring.

[DougVieyra]

Thanks Tom, for posting the photos. I find a 'cut away' engine (or anything else for that matter) a very fascinating display. And the color contrast is especially helpful. Who ever did the work on that engine deserves quite a loud round of applause.

[Tom Wesenberg]

Doug, unfortunately Chet Larson passed away shortly before I joined the club, so I never got to meet him. From what is said about him he was a top notch mechanic.

[Special Coupe Frank]

That beige Tudor looks like a good project basis / driver.

[dean from bozeman]

Tom, thanks for the photos.

I have bought a number of parts from Little Dearborn but never have visited the place. What is it like? Usually I either have a car trailer or am in a hurry when I drive by Minneapolis. Aren't they in an older neighborhood by the university?

Was Little Dearborn the company that bought out the B.S. Wisenewski warehouse (Milwaukee) full of parts? I thought that I had heard something like that.

[Tom Wesenberg]

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Dean, I'm not sure if Little Dearborn bought out the S.S. Wisenewski warehouse, but I know the original owner used to buy up a lot of dealerships old stock. He also bought lots of old things from swap meets for himself and to resell.

They had an open house years ago where the people could tour the entire building, and I unfortunately missed out on that.

[John Duden]

its like going back to 1955 and buying parts, The guys are awesome to work with and they did give me a tour of the whole building, its really neat!

[Jeff/Illinois]

Speaking of dealership's NOS------ back in the early-mid 70's when I was a Ford Parts Manager, we had a ton of NOS flathead and 50's Ford parts in our attic plus a fair amount of Model A. The dealership dated back to about 1946. Anyway there was always a stream of guys coming thru wanting to snoop through our parts and see what we had, and myself and the owner always told them 'NO' and 'We don't have anything'. That stemmed from some guy they caught several years before I was working there, that wanted to 'browse' the owner told him 'OK' and they caught him trying to steal a neon 'Ford V/8' window sign that was still in the packing crate.

A Ford dealership in a small farming town about 24 miles away closed in 1976. Somebody went in there and scooped NOS parts into dump trucks and hauled them all away to 'clean up' the building for the new owners. They were REAL old went back to the 20's, had gobs of Model T-Model A- and early V-8 NOS parts including sheet metal. True story. Myself and a Ford parts manager from the next town over went right up there, we were too late, even went out to the junkyard they hauled the stuff too but it was all covered over already and a big Cat crawler had been driving back and forth mashing it all down.

Talk about crying alligator tears myself and the other guy were both into antique Fords and missed a great opportunity