'26 and '21 getting ready for spring

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Last week I changed oil on the '26. Without any idea of the history of the vehicle and not knowing what's been used in the past I went ahead and put in a multi-grade detergent oil. Now tomorrow I'm going to dump out what I put in after putting a couple hundred miles on it. It'll be interesting to see what the drain oil looks like. My plans are to drain the 10-30 and dump in straight 30 wt detergent.

I pulled the wheel bearings out of the front end of the '26 and put in new seals and repacked the bearings. There's nothing like a good day of playing in 30 year old bearing grease. Mmmmmm. I also dumped some oil in the oilers on the front end and packed some grease in the grease cups on the rearend. Tomorrow after changing oil I'm going check the alignment. I'm pretty sure from just standing and looking at it I've got some pretty severe "toe-out" problems. I'll have to have my son hold one end of the tape when I check it. Then I'll adjust to 3/16"-1/4 inch toe-in and take a look at the 5 1/2 degree angle on the axles. I'm hoping the camber will be ok. I'll have to see how it handles. Tonight it went into a death rattle 4 or 5 times. Usually at a low speed and after hitting a hole in the road to get things starting to shake. Everything on the frontend checks out nice and tight. the kingpins, tie-rods and wheel bearings check good. So I think all it'll take is a good look at the alignment. I figure when you can look at the frontend of the vehicle and it looks slough-footed you've got an issue.

It's getting to where everyday reveals something new on this old beast. I think it found out I'm willing to ignore the '21 in order to work on it and it likes the attention.

[yachtsmanbill]

By all means check the toe in, but cut to the chase on the caster. You have a worn wishbone socket. Its easist checked with two people. Climb underneath and put yer finger at the juncture of the two. Have you helper take a (preferably 2) 24 inch pipe wrenches on the front axle, and lift up and down for you to feel the play.
If theres a spring loaded APCO cap on there get rid of it, or at least the springs. Tighten it down so theres zero lash. If you cant make zero, add a dished out penny or a dime and try again. THAT is where the death wobble comes from...
Dont forget to grease the U joint and a dab on the high speed cam AND oil all the brake lever stuff INCLUDING the anti rattlers on the rear radius rods. Makes it smoove... ws

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Well today was another day in the shop. I pulled the wishbone ball out of it's socket after finding there was a little play in it. I put a .015" shim in it and it took care of some of the death rattle. I thought I had it fixed until I drove it quite a ways and all of a sudden the shake was back. So I drove it home and swore and cussed and kicked the neighbors dog. Then I got under and pulled it apart again. All the time I was pulling it apart all I could hear was that damn dog wimpering so I yelled at it to shutup and then I kicked it again. That kind of worked because the neighbor saw me kick it and came out and got it and put it in the house. So I took the cap into the shop and realized the hole faced surface of it was washed out. So I put it on the belt grinder and flattened it out then cleaned it up with a file. Then I took another larger piece of .015" shimstock and folded it over to get .030". I hammered that into a cupped piece and tightened it into the ball socket after greasing it up real gude. Then I went for another drive. It performed flawlessly. I was so happy. And then I got home and went to pull into the driveway and sure as hell, when I hit the bump at the end of the driveway it started to wobble again. But it only did it at a really slow speed and only a couple times and it settled right down. It strikes me as a bit odd that the thing only goes into the death rattle at slow speeds. So after parking it I got out and checked the wishbones and the socket was still solid as a rock. So I started looking at other things. I grabbed a frontwheel and started to yank it back and forth. I could feel a clunk in it and kept watching as I was doing it. Finally I noticed that the slop was in the tie-rod ends. It's almost imperceptible but it's definitely there. So now it's time for me to ask a question. What's more likely worn, the tie-rod end or the spindle socket? Is it possible to shim the tie-rod or should it be replaced (replacement seems most likely to me to be the right answer). I really hate putting any more work or money into this car than I have to until next winter. But I also want to drive this thing this winter and I want it to be safe. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

On a happier note I put the horn back on today and it works really good with the original stock horn button. So I took it for a run past my neighbors place who has a couple really nice T's and laid on the horn as I went by. I know he appreciated that. So, unless there's something I can do to correct those tie-rods by tomorrow afternoon, I'm only going to worry about getting things cleaned up tomorrow for Saturdays tour. I'm really 'cited for the tour. What kind of cookies and chips and salsa am I going to buy at the grocery store tomorrow for the potluck on Saturday? Hmmmm. But for now it's time for a couple pieces of toast and a glass of milk and go to bed. G'night y'all.

[yachtsmanbill]

First of all, are you talking tie rod or drag link?? As we talked about the other day. the balls rarely get lubed LOL and the tie rods usually get oil when the kingpins do. Fords balls are as loose as the boys after a hot shower. I shimmed both the pitman end and the spindle end on mine.
I make shims from brass washers. Make them dish shaped by putting them on to the end of a piece of pipe and insert a tapered puch and givvem a smack. re-assemble with some grease. The faces should pull together 100% . I had Pat click the wheel back and forth with her thumb and fore finger near the center and I could barely feel any slop. About all I could really discern was the sound of sticky grease smacking inside the cups. Mine could probably use another .015" to make them zero.
If the toe in still needs setting, itll be easier to remove the rod to free up the adjuster, at which time youd service the 2 bushings AND your balls. The tie rod bushings are a bear to change while on the car. They are hard as hell and titer than heck and the arms will bounce a lot without being in a vise. If youve got a gas ax, scarf a slot in each one and theyll come right out. Clean the holes really good and squeeze new ones in with a C clamp or a stud with two nuts. Thats a lot of sexual metaphors for being this early aint it?
BTW... I passed my test yesterday (among other things LOL) with flying colors... ws

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Glad to hear about passing your test. Now we all know you're a perfect as..... .

So what you're saying is the tie-rods can't be help unless replaced.

My old man always use to talk about shimming tie-rods. I've messed with them very little. I put new ones in the '38 when I rebuilt that but then that was a total front end rebuild. By the time I got done with it all that was left was a little alignment and it was ready to go.

The alignment on the '26 seems really good at 1/4 inch toe-in and the front axle is kicked back on the top from the bottom about 6 to 6 1/2 degrees. The kingpins are very tight and now the wishbone socket is too. As I said yesterday the draglink/idler arm assembly is tight as is the other end of the tie-rod. So today I'm going to double check the draglink/idler arm hook-up again. By the time I'm done if the death wobble isn't gone I'm going to have to live with it. It's very hard to even feel it now unless your paying attention.

This poor old car is worn out and I'll be surprised if it makes it through the summer without a pretty major issue somewhere along the way. I'm doing what I can to prevent trouble now but the old bugger is 86 years old and hasn't been maintained very well since the 2nd world war. I'm kind of surprised it avoided the crusher then.

So now I've got a question. Is it true that the only guy that's more of an idiot than Ted Nugent is Dog The Bounty Hunter?

[yachtsmanbill]

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Amboy Dukes kick booty! Dog just plain sucks IMHO.... Thats about 27 steps below COPs or that other new time waster about cops setting up cars to be stolen... entrapment comes to mind.
Personally Id like to give dog a head to toe body shave with some chinese duct tape. That guy makes me wanna barf ws

[yachtsmanbill]

Just had to go finish up some Extra Credit for the semester finals! Whew!!

The whole suspension on the Ts is done with steel shackles in steel bushings... Poor oiling habits makes for worn parts. 85 years is the death cull.
The tie rods are in bushings. The tie rod bolt threads into the bottom with a lock nut and a cotter pin. Get the nut off and unscrew the bolt and theres the bushing. You van buy them cheap or replace the bushing and the bolt for peace of mine. Those bushings are the ones that are a bear to change but wear the most.
The other issue is spring shackles... same game. The exspurts across the hall say take a new bushing and a stud and merely press the new one in pushing the old one out. Ive done at least 80 of them and never had one come out like that. On the Pollinator there was one that needed to be scarfed out with the torch.
Take a close look at the spring center bolt and cross member around the front motor mount for crack while yer showing elbows and buttocks! All that stuff takes a beating from hot rusty water coming out of the overflow tube! ws



New bushings are bronze





After a day of bustin' knuckles i scarfed this one out with the torch...

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Front end is really doing good now. The death wobble is all gone and it drives like a dream. I shimmed the tie-rod bolts. .016" on the drivers side and .006" on the other side. Everything else on the front end is in good shape. Shackles and shackle bushings are good, front spring mount is good. Idler arm ball is lubed and tight, wishbone socket and ball is tight. I just drove the vehicle around different roads in the area for about an hour and a half. I purposely tried to get it to go into the death wobble and couldn't do it. The motor runs excellent, the transmission makes the same noises it always did, the muffler is shot and sounds exactly I want it to sound. The radiator runs cool and doesn't leak. It doesn't drip gas or oil. I've got 82.5% of the rattles stopped. I believe after filling it with gas and washing it tomorrow it's going to be as ready for the tour on Saturday as it's ever going to be. If I've got anything at all to complain about it's that even with the windows down that sucker feels like somebody's got the heater on. I mean it was very warm inside that car. But I got home and popped the top on a cold beer and life is getting better all the time. God bless our Model Ts.

[yachtsmanbill]

Thats exactly why the fordor had a vent on top of the cowl. You can prop open your gas lid for a little extra air. The touring cars we had we would tie a rope around the radiator neck to the latches and keep them wide open. Got all the floorboards in place? Get a thick chunk-o-rug for added insulation and just cut slots for the pedals. Even they get hot and radiate heat! You can also spray glue aluminum foil or underhood insulation on the bottom of the boards to radiate heat especially off the ex-pipe.
Thank GOD for Frigidaire (owned bt GM by the way...) ws

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Yeah, My '21 got hot too. But it wasn't as noticeable because the air was always moving around in the cock pit.

[yachtsmanbill]

Just imagine driving that tudor in Phoenix tomorrow... 107 in the shade; and there aint no shade down there! The one beater touring car we had up north was missing the top part of the floorboards. Man the heat would roll in there! It was neat at night tho to see the manifold glowing red! ws

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Originally Posted by yachtsmanbill

Just imagine driving that tudor in Phoenix tomorrow... 107 in the shade; and there aint no shade down there! The one beater touring car we had up north was missing the top part of the floorboards. Man the heat would roll in there! It was neat at night tho to see the manifold glowing red! ws

My sister lives in Phoenix and all I hear from her is one complaint after another about how hot it is. All I can think of is tough sh-t. She lived in the U. P. before that. That's right she was a uper. Her husband had a job working for the steel company up there. Everyday he had to walk a mile long pipeline down to a dam and chase all the morons off steel company property. Then he'd walk back and he was done for the day. They had free housing a company truck and their utilities were paid. They had to pay their own phone. So they didn't have one. But after a few years he got bored and packed up the whole bunch and moved them to Gila Bend Arizona. Then divorced her, left her broke and moved to DC. She raised her kids and remarried a guy who's job is walking the bomb range at the airforce base by Gila Bend. His job is to keep the illegals off the range after they jump the border. He finds bales of marydidjawanta and other stuff all the time. He has control over the entire bomb range from the Mexican border to the northern range border. When the border patrol wants to go into the range they have to ask him and either he or one of his employees goes in with them. Otherwise they can't go on the range. He's constantly finding abandoned cars and pickups and has them towed off the range. They become property of the US Govt and the weirdest thing of all is that he works for a private contractor out of Alaska. He's always sending me pictures of some of the stuff they find out on the range. He says every once in a while he finds bodies of people who didn't make it. Sometimes because of airstrikes. Sometimes it's no more than bleached out bones. They seldom identify who the people are. He's out there day and night no matter what the temp is. He drives 60 miles one way everyday to work and he loves his job. He's about 6'2" and goes about a buck sixty. He's a really great guy but I worry about his sanity and my sisters well-being. Ya gotta be nuts to want to live in AZ.

I'm not to worried about the heat in the car. Like you said I can open the vent in the cowl and let the air flow around the gas tank and I'll push the windshield out and lock it. I'll make sure I've got some cold water and I'll dress appropriately. Tomorrow is a wash and a polish and then I'll go out and clean the car up. Bwahahahaha! Thank you, thank you, thank you very much, I'll be here all week. Thank you!

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No it's all later than 2000. There is a 1954 Ford 2 ton that they leave where it's at. He says it used as a landmark when they're out there. It's missing one of the dials and all the glass is busted out. It looks like it had been on fire in the cab.

Well tomorrow's the day of the tour. It's been windy as heck for the last 2 days. I wanted to wash the car today but it'll be useless with this wind. Maybe it'll get quiet by this evening.

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Yesterday was a rough one. I was out of sorts from a bad nights sleep and was actually having second thoughts about the tour. But I had a couple guys waiting to meet up with me so I sucked it up and went. The car seemed to perform very well for the first part of the trip. But then we met up with the entire group and things pretty much started to slide downhill. The tour was fun and it was some beautiful country that we drove through. The fella that hosted the tour really put some time into preparation and stayed on top of things like a real champ. He had quite a few interesting stops to show our cars off and a lot of people were impressed with them. Potluck is always good and the drinks were cold and the place where we ate was a beautiful property on the lake. But, after we started the tour and made our first stop I was checking the engine because I had seen steam come out from under the hood. I lifted the hood to take a look and Andy looked in and said your fanbelt isn't even on the pulleys. So we went to put it back on and it was so oily it couldn't stay on. I wiped it and the pulleys off but the damage was already done. The front seal on the motor was bleeding oil like crazy. But rather than quit the tour I continued on because our host had made some commitments that we all wanted to adhere to. But after the last stop rather than finish up with everyone else I headed North. I drove about 15 miles and stopped to fill with fuel. The engine was running cool enough without the fanbelt to keep from hurting the engine. So I started the next leg of the journey but, I got on the phone and told my son to hook-up the trailer and meet me. About 15 miles farther down the road I met up with him. I pulled the car up on the trailer and though the radiator cap was hotter than, well it was pretty hot. So now the sedan goes in the shed until I can make time to work on it. I'll be finishing up the touring car over the next couple days and then at some point I'll start back on the sedan. So all in all the tour was a success and I had fun but I was pretty tired when all was said and done.

So today is a day to take it easy. I'm going to wash some clothes and pick up the house a little and get ready to head to Wisconsin tomorrow.

[yachtsmanbill]

Wow, are you up this early or still up from last night? We were just discusing what to feed you (plus the BS LOL!!!) for dinner... sounds like some cajun yard bird on the grill with Pats potata salad. let me know if you wanna stay overnight on the boat. Got a pile of tools to clean up... no biggy tho...
Scott, the brawny lad, doesnt know it yet haha, but he's gonna help move Andys machine, the lathe, and the bench. The way I see it, we can either knock down the bench, or, put it sideways up front intact, slide the balancer and lathe underneath it. The balancer is on a beat to sheist pallet that you can keep or we can burn. No biggy there either... Now go take a nap.
Whdda ya think of that red speester?? Dont forget those coils please! Bring some goggles for a spin around the block!!
When you re-do the 26, you can use the OEM seal up font, O ring it or put a lip seal in it, but ya gotta pull the pan to do the latter... ws

[Farmallcub49]

The Model A Rope seal is the best for this problem, IMO. The felt just absorbs the oil until it is full and then just screens it as the oil passes through. The modern neoprene seal is great, but as Bill says you have to pull the pan to do it. The Model A is two piece, but it is best to install with the pan off anyways.

[yachtsmanbill]

Ive heard that a 1-1/4" X 1/2" O ring (front journal diameter??) works pretty well also...Cut it at the 12:00 position with a razor blade, and slide it in the bottom pan slot with some ULTRA BLACK (not black RTV!) sealer and glue the joint back together with a drop of crazy glue. I still prefer the anaerobic sealant tho... After the bottom is in, squeeze the sealant in from one side till it excretes out the other side.
I used a cam shaft neoprene lip seal but still used the felt front seal with never seize on the face for a fast run in. Bone dry so far. ws



And yes, the grounding face got cleaned to bare metal!

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My plans are to put the '26 in the shed for now and focus on the '21. Then next winter do the same thing with the sedan as I did with the '21. I'm tired of Model T's right now and have become a little disenchanted.

They've got a show on TV about Naw 'leans right now. They just showed a rat swimming in the water. A true target of opportunity.

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Well I couldn't stand the thought of putting the '26 in the shed so I worked on it instead. It turns out the oil seal under the timer wasn't seated right. A new seal and all is good. I also ripped the water pump off and threw it in the corner. I dislike those things. And then a new fan belt and all is right in Central Minnesota. Now if I can refrain from driving it and working on the '21 I could have two Ts running at the same time.

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Well I fought my way through another baling wire/duct tape farmer fix and got a decent steel gas line put in the '21 today. Then I put the firewall in and it was time to quit. My feet hurt like a bit... Tomorrow I have to pull the starter back off so I can put the bolts in the lower firewall brackets. Then it time to set the steering column in and bolt it down. I'd really be happy to get done that far by tomorrow night. The days getting closer when I might be able to drive it again. Then it'll be time to get the bows rebuilt for the top and get the top on. Then once I get the seats redone she'll be ready for either winter storage or tear the rearend down for rebuild.