The Ford Barn

hotrod937 · 04-01-2013, 03:37 PM

Got this 1931 A off eslay. Bought sight unseen in person and went off what I was told by the seller. Putting faith in strangers is a real exercise in humanity. The car showed up supposedly built and ready to drive. I was told it's an old hot rod found as is with cracked Winfield (replaced with stock head by seller) It's solid with a little rust, bad floor work, two 97's and a Wico JEM. Very nice chassis with z and fresh looking motor. These are the old good things..

The car is put together not so well and leaking from seemingly everywhere. When we attempted to get it running and it wasn't wanting to run at all. First step was looking inside the tank. Found a mouse nest of cotton in there and assumed it's also in the carbs. Got another tank and fully rebuilt the carbs with all Stromberg parts. Here's the carb rebuild vids.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2FHaX8pIJc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KoQv7jOjtk

Now it runs and will stay running. Time to take it for a drive up and down our culdesac. OMG! I knew mech brakes might be a handful but this was insane. Car was wildly uncontrollable when stopping. It locked up random tires and sent you in many directions.
Here's video of the car running and driving after the carb rebuild. Notice the brakes are funky..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3H6x2BTctI\

After reading everything I could find on mech brakes I was confident in my ability to get them working. I made a call to an old timer friend of mine in the local A club who not only gave me some good advice but let me take out his restored 5 window to see how an A should run and stop.

The drums and shoes were newer looking and it looked like all four corners had springs kits. The adjusters are funky and the working hardware should probably be replaced. I made my wood pedal tool and found that the pedal didn't engauge the rears. I took off the drums and found the rod for the e brake was engaging the main shoes and the pedal engaged the worn and glazed e brake shoes. I switched the rods around adjusted all 4 corners per online recommendations. The rods hooked up wrong and the rats nest in the gas tank among other things lead me to believe that whom ever put this car together didn't know what they were doing.

So now the car runs and stops amazing. I took it out on the main road to find that the car breaks up bad after running down the road. It pops, misses and back fires. It's the timing. I played with the timing and it purs like a kitten in the driveway but after getting out down the road it continues to break up. I sanded the points in the Wico and set the gap at .019. Car seemed to run amazing but keeps getting out of time.

While playing with the mag and watching the rotor I noticed there is a massive amount of play in the turning action of the body to how the rotor moves. Took it apart to find the drive rod is very worn. also the drive on the mag is worn and I'm assuming the oil pump gear drive is also sloppy.

So I break out the Macs catalog to order the parts and a full gasket set. The oil leak is still pouring and I believe there's preasure building up in the case. My cap is good with tabs in place and no wool inserted. It drips a little sometimes after running and others times it pours. I never let the oil get past half way between f and add. The car got severely out of time the last test drive and I limped it home about a mile popping and banging. I didn't hear any pining and the plugs looked just right. So in my desire to want things to be right and knowing the dumb mistakes a previous owner had made I decided to pull the motor and just check everything over on my own. Currently the motor is sitting on a tire and tonight I'll mount it up on a stand and pull the pan. Here's my farm raised neighbor helping me pull the engine. Took us about an hour.

Side note: as for the look of the car, I can't stand how it sits with the z kick in the frame. I want a stock dropped axle for now until I find a stock frame. After I get this thing running, steering and stopping how it should, I'll probably do a frame up mild resto on it and fix the body up and make everything nice.

04-01-2013, 03:37 PM	#1
hotrod937 Member Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: Ohio Posts: 61	Getting to Know an Old Jalopy Roadster and Making It Work Got this 1931 A off eslay. Bought sight unseen in person and went off what I was told by the seller. Putting faith in strangers is a real exercise in humanity. The car showed up supposedly built and ready to drive. I was told it's an old hot rod found as is with cracked Winfield (replaced with stock head by seller) It's solid with a little rust, bad floor work, two 97's and a Wico JEM. Very nice chassis with z and fresh looking motor. These are the old good things.. The car is put together not so well and leaking from seemingly everywhere. When we attempted to get it running and it wasn't wanting to run at all. First step was looking inside the tank. Found a mouse nest of cotton in there and assumed it's also in the carbs. Got another tank and fully rebuilt the carbs with all Stromberg parts. Here's the carb rebuild vids. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2FHaX8pIJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KoQv7jOjtk Now it runs and will stay running. Time to take it for a drive up and down our culdesac. OMG! I knew mech brakes might be a handful but this was insane. Car was wildly uncontrollable when stopping. It locked up random tires and sent you in many directions. Here's video of the car running and driving after the carb rebuild. Notice the brakes are funky.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3H6x2BTctI\ After reading everything I could find on mech brakes I was confident in my ability to get them working. I made a call to an old timer friend of mine in the local A club who not only gave me some good advice but let me take out his restored 5 window to see how an A should run and stop. The drums and shoes were newer looking and it looked like all four corners had springs kits. The adjusters are funky and the working hardware should probably be replaced. I made my wood pedal tool and found that the pedal didn't engauge the rears. I took off the drums and found the rod for the e brake was engaging the main shoes and the pedal engaged the worn and glazed e brake shoes. I switched the rods around adjusted all 4 corners per online recommendations. The rods hooked up wrong and the rats nest in the gas tank among other things lead me to believe that whom ever put this car together didn't know what they were doing. So now the car runs and stops amazing. I took it out on the main road to find that the car breaks up bad after running down the road. It pops, misses and back fires. It's the timing. I played with the timing and it purs like a kitten in the driveway but after getting out down the road it continues to break up. I sanded the points in the Wico and set the gap at .019. Car seemed to run amazing but keeps getting out of time. While playing with the mag and watching the rotor I noticed there is a massive amount of play in the turning action of the body to how the rotor moves. Took it apart to find the drive rod is very worn. also the drive on the mag is worn and I'm assuming the oil pump gear drive is also sloppy. So I break out the Macs catalog to order the parts and a full gasket set. The oil leak is still pouring and I believe there's preasure building up in the case. My cap is good with tabs in place and no wool inserted. It drips a little sometimes after running and others times it pours. I never let the oil get past half way between f and add. The car got severely out of time the last test drive and I limped it home about a mile popping and banging. I didn't hear any pining and the plugs looked just right. So in my desire to want things to be right and knowing the dumb mistakes a previous owner had made I decided to pull the motor and just check everything over on my own. Currently the motor is sitting on a tire and tonight I'll mount it up on a stand and pull the pan. Here's my farm raised neighbor helping me pull the engine. Took us about an hour. Side note: as for the look of the car, I can't stand how it sits with the z kick in the frame. I want a stock dropped axle for now until I find a stock frame. After I get this thing running, steering and stopping how it should, I'll probably do a frame up mild resto on it and fix the body up and make everything nice.