blog418

The mystery continues. I thought my runabout's difficult cold starting might be due to air leaks around the intake manifold. So I tightned the manifold nuts, and that seemed to help. But later, after the car had sat for a couple of hours, it was just as stubborn as before. I really want to fix that, but I left it for later and devoted the afternoon to cleaning up in my office. I made some progress, but there's still alot of sorting, filing, and tossing out to do.

Monday, April 2, 2018

At 8:10 AM I left the Camry at the body shop and started walking. I got home at 9:46, so I estimate the walk to be about five miles. I'll drive the route and see if the odometer confirms my guess. After my numb fingers thawed out, I went back to work on the runabout. I pulled off the carburetor and removed the intake manifold. I applied some new high temp RTV to the manifold and reinstalled it, hoping that an air leak was causing the hard cold starts and that new RTV to seal the leak would cure the problem. I'll let the sealant cure overnight and see what happens tomorrow.

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Hmmm... I don't know what to think about that roadster. After letting the RTV cure overnight, I started the car four times today. The first two times I choked it once, turned on the ignition, and started it on the first pull. The third time it took several pulls to start. Then this evening I tried it again and it started on the first pull. I guess as long as it's easy starting three times out of four I won't worry about it. What else did I do? In the morning I continued with office cleaning and sorting. In the afternoon I took the chain saw to the wood lot and cut up a dead tree that had fallen across the road, brought up a couple of loads of wood, split it, and stacked it in the garage. The thermometer showed high forties, which isn't terribly cold, but the north wind activated my nasal snot fountain and I used up plenty of tissues. I'll be glad to see warm weather arrive for more than one or two days a week.

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

The Memorial Day weekend Model T tour in Concordia is almost two months away, but I spent a good chunk of the morning picking out a route between here and there, making notes, and figuring up the distances from point to point. Most people trailer their old cars to events like this, but I want to drive mine there, drive it on the tour, and drive it home from the tour. If I figured right, the distance to Concordia is 220 miles. In the afternoon I went to town in the runabout for errands. Those included a stop at the farm supply to pick up a copy of the free paper that lists local auctions, Wal-Mart for LED bulbs and eye medicine, the liquor store for port, the dentist to pay a bill, Dillons market for celery, and the body shop to pay the bill and pick up the key for the Camry. Driving home I found that my estimate of Monday's walk was a little high. The distance was actually 4.2 miles.

Thursday, April 5, 2018

Resurfaced New Day timer

Carbon brushes

This morning I hoofed it into town to get the Camry from the body shop, then drove up to the courthouse to pay for the registration on the trailer. My project in the shop was making hooks to keep the magnetic trailer lights from bouncing off the fenders. The hooks, made of 1/8" welding rod, grab the outside edges of the fenders. Ordinary rubber bungees grab the insides of the fenders. I left the tail lights on the runabout when I drove it to town for groceries and they stayed put. The real test will be when I drive off the pavement. This evening I took the timer off the roadster and installed a beautiful resurfaced one I got from Nick Nicholas. Then I resurfaced the one I took off the car. I'll carry it as a spare.

Friday, April 6, 2018

Winter isn't giving up easily. After a couple of mild days, the forecast said more cold was coming. So I got the saw and cut up another dead tree that had fallen across the road in the wood lot. As I was finishing up splitting the wood and putting it away a chilly north wind was blowing and the temperature was dropping. In the shop I tried changing spark plugs in the runabout to see if that would make cold starts any easier. The Firestones are pretty, but they didn't make any difference in starting. The mystery continues.

Saturday, April 7, 2018

It was auction day in Winfield. My big expense was $16 for a pair of streoscopes, one complete and one missing some parts. That price is cheap even for one. The second biggest deal was $11 for a comfortable office chair, which I tested by taking a nice nap in it while I waited for the auctioneers to sell all the stuff that was of no interest to me. The other purchases were a pair of speakers, an air chisel, two pneumatic sanders, a box of new work gloves, and a pair of Prince Albert cans, at prices from 50¢ for the speakers to $4.50 for the chisel.

Sunday, April 8, 2018

Another auction, but no deals. At the Patterson auction in Oxford there were some old fans and telephones that kept me there until they came up for sale, but other folks were willing to pay a lot more for them than I was. On the way home I stopped at Country Mart and stocked up on a couple of the cereals I use. The locally owned store is having a going-out-of-business sale. That will leave us with just a Dillons (one of the Kroger chains) and Wal-Mart. I don't believe either one carries the jalapeño cheese I've been buying.

Monday, April 9, 2018

About 3:00 PM I finished doing taxes. I was inspired to post this on Facebook:

Just finished taxes. Congratulations to our elected representatives on demanding an interest-free loan in the form of paying NEXT YEAR'S taxes before they're due. What's next? A requirement to pay multiple years ahead? Jerks.

I went ahead and paid all the estimated tax to avoid having to remember quarterly payments. If I'm lucky there will be no more harassment from the feds until next year.

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Job one this morning was leaving the Camry in town to have its dead AC examined. When I got home I headed for Oxford for another auction. I bought a Pioneer stereo, a tripod, a circa 1955 Kodak Brownie 8mm movie projector still with its original tag, a screen, and a set of DIY books. I spent $8. After some shopping in town, I spent the rest of the day working on a carburetor for the runabout.

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

The wind was strong. The air was filled with smoke and the smell of burning grass. Somewhere to the south a range fire was burning. Spring on the plains. In the shop I finished my carburetor overhaul. I was delighted to find that the new carb solved my hard starting problem. More of the story is here.

Thursday, April 12, 2018

Not so fast. I thought the hard starting problem was solved, but no. The new carburetor worked great, then it didn't. It has a flooding problem. I headed to town for shopping and got ¾ mile down the road, and the car died at the stop sign. Gas was dripping from the carb, and whacking it with a wrench didn't stem the tide. A passing neighbor gave me a ride home, and I got a spare carburetor and drove modern back to the corner. With the spare NH on the Ford I got it home. I suspected that the problem was that I used one of the new seat gaskets that are too hard to seal well and let gas leak around the seat.So I made another gasket of softer material.

Friday, April 13, 2018

This is really getting tiresome and annoying. This morning it seemed I had the carburetor problem solved. I put the thing back on the car and was delighted to get a start on the first pull of the crank. I even celebrated by shooting a video. But my delight died when I drove the car to town for a couple of errands. The carburetor was flooding again, and it took a lot of cranking to get started again after every stop. When I got home I took the carb off and worked on it some more. But when I put it back in the car it still dripped gas. I guess my next step will be to quit trying to fix the float valve and just replace it.

Saturday, April 14, 2018

The annual spring farm equipment auction sometimes has an item or two that I want. I don't need a plow or a combine, but occasionally I've found some good shop tools I didn't already have. Not so today. I saw nothing to keep me there, and that wasn't the least bit disappointing. The temperature was in the thirties and a strong wind was blowing, and I was glad to leave. I came home and went back to work on that dripping carburetor. I gave up trying to make the float valve seat work, and installed a new one. I used the old needle. When I got the carb back on the car I couldn't try it, because now the fuel line pack nut was leaking badly. The only new gasket I had for it was felt, which I dislike, so when I headed for Wichita I stopped at O'Reilly and got a piece of rubber fuel line to make new gaskets. I bought a foot of hose, which will probably provide a lifetime suppy of pack nut gaskets. My trip to Wichita was a shopping expedition for a couple of gallon jars of kimchi, which aren't available locally, plus dinner at Buffet City, and seeing A Quiet Place. The food was good, and so was the movie.

I ran a poplar dowel in the new seat to get it as smooth as I could.

I also got the needle as smooth as I could.

Sunday, April 15, 2018

I bogged down in front of the computer playing online all morning. In the afternoon I made thirteen of those pack nut gaskets. One to use now and a dozen to have in the drawer when I need one. I also opened up that flooding carburetor and discovered what was really wrong with it. The hinge was bent cockeyed so the float was getting stuck on the side of the bowl. It was an easy fix to straighten the hinge so the float was properly centered. With that done the flooding was cured, and I was delighted to find that the car was an easy starter. I started it several times, on both battery and magneto, and it always fired on the first or second pull of the crank. Tomorrow is supposed to warm up to 60º, so I'll go for a test drive.

Monday, April 16, 2018

Most of the day I worked in the shop putting away tools, organizing parts, and threading some spark plug thumb nuts. The Camry was in town for AC repair, and when it was done I drove the runabout into town to pay the bill. The car started easily at both stops in town, and ran great. Having that properly functioning carburetor on the car is a delight.

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Down to my last pair of clean sox, I did laundry. In the afternoon I started planting the seedlings sent by the Arbor Day Society when you reenlist. I did three redbuds before time ran out. I was pleasantly surprised to find that most of the ones I planted last year had survived the dry winter and spring. I'll plant more tomorrow.

The squeaky wheel gets the oil.

Dig a hole.

Put in the seedling, fill in the dirt around it, and water.

Stick in an electric fence rod to mark the spot.

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Today I got back to planting seedlings. I got four dogwoods in the ground. That leaves two Washington Hawthorn and two Sargent Crab Apple to plant. I want to get them all in tomorrow so they can have the benefit of the rain predicted for this weekend.

Thursday, April 19, 2018

Done. All the seedlings are in the ground. During the chilly morning I worked in the shop. One chore there was adapting thumb nuts to use on Champion X spark plugs. Straight-side X plugs take a nut with a 5-40 thread. I drilled and tapped a couple dozen 4-40 nuts out to 5-40. I could buy correct nuts, but I'd rather spend the dough on other parts. These cheap ones are close enough for me. By noon the outside had warmed up to almost 60º and I finished planting the seedlings. I gave each one a drink of at least two gallons with a watering can, but I'm hoping there's enough rain this weekend to give them a good soaking. My last job of the day was a shopping trip to town in the runabout. I'm really enjoying how well that little car starts and runs.

Friday, April 20, 2018

Not much accomplished today. I had to go to Wichita for an appointment with the eye doc. With a couple of shopping stops, I didn't get home until almost 3:00 PM. Then I spent forever buying some screws on one website and a couple of taps on another. I despise passwords. I also despise online sites that give you a hard time because your computer is "no longer supported".

Saturday, April 21, 2018

At last! Actual rain arrived in the wee hours of the morning and kept up all day. It was never a downpour, just a steady ligtht rain that kept going into the evening. I won't be surprised if I find an inch in the gauge when I check it in the morning. I went to check out another auction this morning, and didn't find enough to keep me there. So I came home and got some work done. I did some brass polishing on the roadster's radiator. getting rid of the water spots from the leak I repaired the other day. I aired up all ghe tires on the roadster so it will be ready to drive on the next nice day. Then I got started on today's magnum opus. I'm making clamps to attach an air filter to a Holley NH carburetor. I got the first one almost finishesd, so I'm about halfway through the project. I'll make the other clamp tomorrow, then try the air filter on the cabrburetor. If the car remains an easy starter with the air filter on it, I'll go ahead and finish up the clamps and paint them, and be ready to install the filter as a regular feature.

Sunday, April 22, 2018

The storm was better than I expected. It left 2.25" in the gauge this morning. After months without a decent rain, that's a welcome change. I spent the day in the shop finishing up my air filter hardware. I finished it in the afternoon, attached it to the runabout's carburetor, and tried it out. I was delighted to find that the test confirmed my suspicion. The air filter does nothing to interfere with the car's easy starting. I started the car several times to be sure. On battery it started on the first pull of the crank, and on magneto usually on the second or third pull. On battery I even got a few free starts (the car starts when the switch is turned on, without a pull of the crank). So I removed the filter, took it and all the mounting hardware apart, stripped off the plating, prepped all the parts, and painted them. With its new finish of satin black Rustoleum the filter will fit right in with its surroundings.

Monday, April 23, 2018

Maintenance day. I spent a couple of hours fixing the sagging, falling-apart door on the tool shed. Then I took down a couple of old windows that have been lying on the garage roof, and cleaned off some old lath and other left over boards that were up there too. Then I took shorty for a ride as I gave the runabout a test drive. The air filter did nothing to hamper its running at high speed (38 mph). When we got home I took a picture to compare this spring with a normal one. The photo on the left is April 22, 2015. The one on the right is today. With this cold, dry spring some of the trees are just starting to leaf out and others haven't even started.

Tuesday, April 24, 2018

The second time around is easier. With an air filter successfully installed on the 1915 runabout, today I set about doing the same for the 1923 touring. I made the new mounting hardware I needed to make, sand blasted the shiny parts to make the paint stick, and had everything painted in one day. I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly I had it all done.

Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Today's main activity was another auction. There were a few, very few, items of interest amid a vast collection of unmitigated crap. To make it even better, the day was wet and cold. A light drizzle and a northwest breeze in the forties made it feel more like February than April. I stuck with it long enough to spend too much ($22.50) for a Kellogg wall phone for parts. Most of the guts are gone, but I think it can be fixed up enough for a non-working display. On a nice day I would have stayed for a couple more things, but by then I'd had enough and I was glad to get in the car and turn on the heater. After the auction I went grocery shopping and bought most of what I'll eat for the next week: apples, bananas, celery, cucumbers, and tomatoes. I go on the theory that the less you eat that has a list of ingredients the better off you are.

Thursday, April 26, 2108

I walked down to the wood lot for an inspection tour today. Most of the seedlings, the ones planted last week and the ones from last year, appear to be surviving OK. I counted hedge branches I've cut that will be suitable for fence posts, and it appears there are enough for more than twenty posts. That will be more than enough for a project I have in mind, which is to set up a stretch of old time fence for a photo backdrop. The actual work I did was to get started on resurrecting my pickup, which has been sitting dead all winter. Something in the rear axle is broken and stuck. This afternoon I just got started with the wheel puller, getting ready to pull the axle shafts and the differential.

Friday, April 27, 2018

Wednesday evening's fires in the kitchen stove and the living room fireplace were probably the end of the wood burning season. The ten day forecast is showing afternoon and evening highs in the sixties and seventies. Of course a cold snap in May is possible, but it's unlikely. Today I demonstrated once again that a two-hour job can take all day and more when you don't have a tool and have to make it. In this case it was a puller to remove the axle shafts from the truck that held me up. At the end of the day I had the carrier out of the truck and in the shop, the differential removed, and the carrier clamped in a vise. At this point I am stuck. The pinion is stuck solid and an impact wrench can't get the nut off to remove it. I may have to apply the heat wrench and turn the nut red to loosen it up.