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Thursday, March 2, 2023
19 days to spring

I wish I knew a way to remove casting (freeze) plugs without wrecking them so I could reuse them, but I don't. So I had to drill holes in them and pry them out with an ice pick. That's 75¢ down the drain. All three were leaking, not badly, but enough to be annoying. I'll let the holes dry overnight, then clean thoroughly and install new plugs. While I have the cooling system drained I'll attempt some leak repair on the radiator too. Another job is at the top of the list. The prewar swap meet in Chickasha is the week after next, so I need to get some of the junk out of the Suburban and start loading some of the stuff I'll be taking to sell. I don't have any high-dollar items to take, but I hope I can unload enough cheap stuff to pay for the trip. I'll also be buying, though not necessarily at the meet. Every March when I go to Oklahoma I buy some new Roundhouse overalls, which aren't sold here.

Friday, March 3, 2023
18 days to spring

Today's center of attention was the 1915 Ford. I made three new casting plugs, two for the rear holes facing forward and one for the front hole with the bison facing rearward. I thoroughly cleaned the holes, slathered plenty of Ultra Black in them, and pounded in the plugs with a brass drift and a BFH. In cleaning I observed again that those little Dremel-style wire brushes sure don't last long. I wasn't very neat with the sealant, so I'll wait until tomorrow or Sunday when it's all well set up before I clean up what got smeared on and around the plugs. Next was the radiator. I removed it from the car and soldered a little hole that one of the hood rivets had worn in the top tank. Next will be the leaking seam along the top front edge of the tank. That may be one of those longer-than-you-thought jobs, so it will wait until morning.

Saturday, March 4, 2023
17 days to spring

It was the radiator today. My first attempt at soldering the leaking seam went nowhere, as the big soldering iron wouldn't generate enough heat to melt solder. So I used the micro-torch, and that did the job. Using the torch resulted in a rather uneven seam with some bumps that required grinding down, but I hope the leaks are cured. About 1:30 I headed for Wichita, as this week's movie was another of those unlikely to make it to the local theater down here in Podunk. All Quiet on the Western Front was well worth the trip. Some reviews of this third adaptation of the Remarque book complain that it is too loosely based on the book. Not having read the book, I'll assume that this picture is a broad adaptation. That doesn't detract from the movie. Seeing it without reference to the book or the 1930 and 1979 movie versions, it stands on its own as excellent. Director Edward Berger, cinematographer James Friend, and their colleagues have achieved the most realistic depiction of trench warfare you are likely ever to see. It is remarkable. This film should be seen in a theater, on a big screen, with the full impact of sound and pictorial detail. I should also mention the score by Volker Bertelmann, which is brooding, ominous, energetic, and always appropriate to the action. So many aspects of this production are so well done that it's one of the best pictures of 2022.

Sunday, March 5, 2023
16 days to spring

This was one of those days when a south wind makes the outdoors warmer than inside the house and I open the windows the let the warmer air in. But the predicted high in the upper seventies never arrived, and it stayed cool enough in the kitchen for me to light the stove at dinner time. In the shop I worked on the radiator, buffing and polishing the front of the top tank where I soldered yesterday. I reinstalled the radiator in the car, and as I was finishing that I discovered that one of the braces I added several years ago has broken loose. So I have more soldering to do tomorrow.

Monday, March 6, 2023
15 days to spring

The preview of spring we've enjoyed the past couple of days is over. When I went to the house to turn on the electric blankets this evening there was a distinct chill in the air. My work in the shop today was that radiator repair I mentioned yesterday. I resoldered the loose corner brace, buffed, and polished. Needing a new gasket for the radiator cap, I went to town and waste $1.52 for a rubber washer that turned out to be just a hair too big to lie down flat. I'll see how it does with the cap screwed in and holding it down. Maybe it will be OK. If not, I'll make a cork gasket. This evening I refilled the radiator and was pleased to find no leaks anywhere, includng at the new casting plugs. If they're still dry tomorrow I'll declare victory and reinstall the intake manifold and carburetor. The next job after that will be replacing lost hood rivets and installing new hood pads.

Tuesday, March 7, 2023
14 days to spring

Never went off the place today. I cleaned and polished the radiator, which I should have done while I had it off the car. The new casting plugs were holding with no leaks, so I reinstalled the intake manifold and the carburetor. I thought I was going to download more maps for my flash drive atlas, but the internet went down about noon and didn't come back on until after seven. No big deal. The maps will still be there later.

Wednesday, March 8, 2023
13 days to spring

Well, folks, I'm tired of being tired. I hope this pronounced feebleness and weariness is due to my runaway pulse, and that some miracle of modern medicine will eventually get it under control. Until three weeks ago my pulse always averaged in the mid-seventies. Then suddenly it was 121, 125, 129, 124, etc. The 25mg Metoprolol pills made no difference. Since I started taking the 50mg pills it's gone down to 115-118. Whoopee. The lethargy, ennui, and malaise still continue. Despite that I did get a couple of things done today. One was splitting enough wood to fill three boxes which I brought into the house. That little bit of physical exertion was tiring. A month ago it would have been a lot less so. Today's other work was of the sedentary type. I added all the Kentucky county maps to my flash drive atlas. I didn't make an exact count, but I know there are well over a hundred of them.

Thursday, March 9, 2023
12 days to spring

Maybe it wasn't the best use of time, but I spent a big chunk of the day working on a new web page about Kevlar transmission band linings. That does actually save me some time in the end, I think. Some questions come up repeatedly in the online Model T groups, so it's handy to have an answer ready to post with just a link. My other activity of the day was some much-needed cleaning up and putting-away in the shop. There's a good deal more of that to do. Maybe I should put things away when I finish using them.

Friday, March 10, 2023
11 days to spring

First up this morning was a drive to Winfield and Udall to check out a couple of auctions. The one in Winfield tomorrow has a couple of items worth the trip. They're near the end of the sale, so I'll go late in the afternoon. The sale near Udall was amazing. I thought I had a mess of junk. I've got nothing. This place had tons of stuff, most of it broken, with pieces missing, or just falling apart. I assume the auctioneers split up and ran two or three rings just to get through it all before dark, but not one thing tempted me to stay. When I got home I finished and posted my new web page. I spent too much time playing internet, but remembered to get into town for groceries before quitting time.

Saturday, March 11, 2023
10 days to spring

OOooops! I forgot about that auction in Winfield this afternoon. Oh well, there will be others. Some thirty years ago I bought four new tires for my 1926 roadster pickup project. I hung them up on the wall in my barn and they've been there ever since, waiting for the project I've never finished. Today I took them down to vacuum off the cobwebs and clean them up. They will be going to Chickasha. I wouldn't trust them for actual driving, but they'd be OK for display. Will they sell at $10 each? We'll see. My last chore this afternoon was splitting and hauling in some wood for the kitchen stove. It's a good thing we're approaching the end of firewood season. The splitter has started bogging down and dying occasionally. I hope it will hold up at least for another month or so. Saturday treat night this week was dinner at home, with tuna tostadas and bean tostadas. This week's movie was the latest in the Rocky series, Creed III. Michael B. Jordan stars and directs. He and antagonist Jonathan Majors aren't just a pair of pretty bodies. Both are good actors, as are the rest of the cast. There is more drama than boxing, but when the fight scenes come they are staged, acted, and edited to be very realistc and convincing. I give this one two thumbs up.

Sunday, March 12, 2023
9 days to spring

This was one of those days when I wonder how I spent so much time getting so little done. I kicked off daylight saving by getting up late. I passed the morning and part of the afternoon schmoozing on Facebook and the Model T forum, then did a little gathering of stuff to take to Chickasha. I sent a message to the clinic reporting that the 50 mg per day of metoprolol had reduced my racing heart rate from the 122-124 range down to 115-118, and asking if the dose should be adjusted. This evening I went on the Blockley website and started the ball rolling on ordering a pair of front tires. I have to wait for them to tell me the cost of shipping before I place the order.

Monday, March 13, 2023
8 days to spring

It would have been better to clean up those old tires a few days ago when the weather was warmer. When I tried to hose them off today, ice in the hose kept the flow of water down to a trickle. So I took them into the house one at a time and hosed them in the shower. I hunted up more stuff to take to Chickasha, and printed up some prices tags. I received an email from Blockley revealing the cost of shipping. But my browser failed to enter the password on the Blockey website, and I had no record of it, so I tried to change the password. The website refused to accept the new password. So I sent an email to Blockley asking how to proceed. Because of the time difference it was then after 5:00 PM in Britain, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow for an answer. I did receive an answer from the clinic. The doc says I can double my dosage from one pill in the evening to one in the morning and another in the evening. We'll see if that gets me back to anywhere near normal. I still wonder why my resting heart rate, after averaging in the seventies approximately forever, suddenly shot up to over 120 and stayed high.

Tuesday, March 14, 2023
7 days to spring

The coming of spring doesn't mean warm weather right away. The forecast shows Monday starting off freezing, 31º, and climbing to only 48º in the afternoon. It's not time to stop harvesting firewood yet. But now is not the time to think about that. There's other more immediate stuff to deal with, like buying tyres. I was able to do that on my desktop computer. I couldn't log on to the Blockley website with my laptop yesterday, but the desktop did it this morning with no trouble. I ordered two front tyres at £149 each, plus £116 for shipping. The total of £414 is about $501. Apparently Paypal takes a cut even if you pay by credit card, because the final charge on my card was $526.11. Another notable event today was the sudden mysterious resurrection of email on my desktop computer. It hasn't worked since September 20, and I've been using the laptop for email. This morning I heard a ding and all the email people have sent me since September showed up in the inbox. If I did anything to cause this partial recovery, I have no clue what it may have been. I call it a partial recovery because the email still refuses to send an outgoing message. The other main activity of the day was more loading of stuff to take to Chickasha tomorrow. Most of what I'm taking is now in the Suburban, and I'll finish loading in the morning.

Wednesday, March 15, 2023
6 days to spring

Aha! I was having trouble getting this software I use at home to work on the road, but I think I've got it now. I finished loading and hit the road at 12:32 PM. With a stop to fill up in OKC, I arrived at the Grady County Fairgrounds at 4:02. I was surprised to find the gates still locked and only abut half a dozen vehicles waiting. There are usually over a hundred. I soon found out the reason. I was a day early. Set-up day is tomorrow, not today. Last year there was some talk about thefair board moving th e meet up a day, and it seems that never happened but I thought it did. Oh, well. It's just another day of dining out. Tamazcal, the Mexican place where I've gone for many years, apparently went belly up. Now its Roberto's. Still pretty good food.

Thursday, March 16, 2023
5 days to spring

My bedroom was the Suburban parked in the Walmart lot. Most Walmarts used to be open 24-7, but now they're closed from 11:00 PM to 6:00 AM. Fortunately I didn't have to go during the night. When I arrived at the fairgrounds the gate was open and the vehicles were lined up inside waiting to go to their spaces. As usual, the lineup was a lot of opportunity for visiting and blathering and pre-meet shopping. On one trailer I found a box of ring rear supports for the Ruckstell two-speed rear axle. I picked out a good one, the best of about half a dozen, and happily paid $40 for it. That's one third the price of a new one, and I need to to replace one I have that is cracked. About 3:00 PM the south wind turned around and became a north wind, and the plunge toward tomorrow morning's freezing began, and the rain started. Within a few minutes it was blinding, coming down in buckets, and they let everybody go on in to their spaces ahead of the official 4:00 PM opening time. I was unloaded and set up by five, and went to dinner at China Dream, a pretty decent buffet for a small town like Chickasha.

Friday, March 17, 2023
4 days to spring

When the old timers say it ain't what it used to be, they're right. This year more of the spaces are empty than occupied. But despite that I sold enough to pay for my space and the trip down here, and got rid of some stuff I've been hauling down here for a few years. Add the nice visits with folks I only see at old car events, and it was a very nice couple of days. Dinner tonight was at A & E Grill, which I'd never heard of until this trip, with a bunch of the Model T guys from Tennessee. The food was very good, and this will stay on my list of places to eat in Chickasha.

Saturday, March 18, 2023
3 days to spring

A few more things sold this morning off the $1 tarp, but most of the buying and selling are over by the end of Friday. I was packed up and hit the road for home at 12:50 PM. Every March my Oklahoma trip includes buying new overalls. My brand is Round House, made in Oklahoma USA. This year I wasted my time in Walmarts in Chickasha, Moore, and Guthrie, where all they had were Dickies (made in China). In Blackwell I found Round House, but nearly all in fat sizes. I bought the only set in my size. Finally, in Ponca City, I found Round House fully stocked and bought another set in my size. Getting home about six, I brought in the mail then went to dinner at La Fiesta. I had my favorite personal combination — one tamal, a burrito de chorizo, and frijoles refritos. I consider frijoles la comida de los dioses. [Gringos assume that the singular of tamales must be tamale. It isn't. It's tamal.] This week's movie was 65, so named because Adam Driver and a young girl find themselves stranded on the Earth 65 million years ago and spend most of their time fighting and/or eluding a lot of very big and very unfriendly creatures, mostly of the reptilian persuasion. I would call it a B movie dressed up with a lot of CGI.

Sunday, March 19, 2023
2 days to spring

Is that right? Spring starts tomorrow, so it's really one day. And I am really ready for winter to be over. I mean by temperature, not just by calendar. When I looked out the shop window this morning the thermometer outside read 16º F! At least it's the last freezing morning in the ten day forecast. I got up late and spent the morning playing internet. In the afternoon I started shopping for a camera. The other day my Canon A640 was seriously damaged when it fell out of my pocket and hit a concrete floor. I've been using this model for 16 years, buying another each time one is wrecked or stolen. But now they're getting more scarce. I also contacted a repair company for an estimate, and it seems this time it will be better to fix than to replace.

Monday, March 20, 2023

Spring arrived this afternoon cloudy and windy, but above freezing. Kindling for this evening was blown-down branches from the lawn. I spent a lot of time online today, some of it recreational schmoozing and some of it research. Part of the research was finding which spindle arm I want for the runabout. Before Ford quit supplying speedometers they had a right side spindle arm that was made with a hole for mounting a speedometer swivel. My clamp-on swivel wants to work loose and wander, so I want one of those arms. Maybe bolting the swivel to an arm that was made for it will persuade it to stay put. In the cooking department, I have some milk to use up before it goes bad. So part of tonight's dinner was potato soup. Warm soup on a chilly evening is good.

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

First up was a partial laundry — sox and overalls. Sox because I was out of clean ones and overalls because new ones need to be washed before you wear them or they will turn you blue. Today's trip to town was for groceries and shipping. I sent my broken camera to the repair center in Glendale. My other bit of interstate business was a Paypal payment to a guy in the Bay area for that 2696B spindle arm. Those early parts (1911 in this case) tend to be scarce, so I was a bit surprised to get three offers within 24 hours after posting a classified ad for it. Will I have the "new" arm installed in the car and the swivel mounted on it by this time next week? We'll see. I had a phone visit from Jesus this evening. He's the college student in Nebraska who was born in Fremont but lived in Mexico from ages 2 to 16. His accent gives me trouble over the phone. I'll be interested to see if I understand him better when we get together in person.

Wednesday, March 22, 2023

This was going to be my day to mount the new front tires on my runabout. I got the right one done, but the left one is waiting for me to find a missing rim nut. I put the new tires in a black trash bag out in the sun to get them warm, but the predicted 80º+ never arrived and the tire I did mount was about room temperature. It turned out that was not a problem. With baby powder and some long irons it was an easy mount. I find that the job is easier with the wheel on the car rather than off. The tube I've been using on that wheel has a slow leak from a tiny pin hole. That would be easily fixed in some other location, but the hole is right at the edge of the vulcanized stem base, and I'm not sure a patch will work there. I guess I can try it and see. I have a few extra 30 x 3½ tubes for rear tires, but no spare 30 x 3 for fronts. So I went to the Coker website to buy one. It is remarkable how many businesses have user-unfriendly websites. I finally gave up trying to find what I wanted online, and ordered by phone.

Thursday, March 23, 2023

"If it wasn't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all." Specifically, my bad luck was in trying to find that missing rim nut. So I went to my drawer of air and tire hardware and picked out one that isn't right for this car but will work, and installed the other tire. Little by little, the runabout is getting ready for the touring season. Most of what I have to do to it won't cost much, but $500 for rear tires will need to wait at least one more payday. I want to install that new spindle arm to hold the speedometer swivel before I drive the car any more, but after that I can work on the vehicle between drives even if I drive it daily. Then there's all the other work that will come with warmer weather. It makes me a bit tired just thinking of all the outdoor jobs I need to do.

Friday, March 24, 2023

Two days after shipping my camera off to the repair center I find that my spare camera is dead. Even with fresh batteries, it won't turn on. I've never bothered with learning how to take pictures with a phone because I prefer a real camera. But it looks like I'll have to get by with phone pictures until I have a real camera working again. Today's name of the game was study. I spent a couple of hours reading Glen Chaffin's book on repair and restoration of the Rucstell rear axle for Ford cars. Here in the relatively flat middle of the continent the stock Model T drive train and brakes are quite adequate. But when I venture into serious up and down country east of Wheeling and west of Denver I want to be equipped with a Ruckstell and AC brakes for climbing and descending without having to stand on the low pedal. A notable event today was arrival in the mail of a cheese slicer. I bought it on AliExpress three weeks ago for $5.37 (with free shipping!) Why not just buy one in a store? Because any that's available in a store would be twice the size, three times the price, and mostly plastic. This one is all metal. I hope it's not fragile pot metal. Interestingly, it was shipped from Kyrgyzstan. There's nothing to say whether it was made there or somewhere else.

Saturday, March 25, 2023

There were two auctions for me to check out this morning. At the fairgrounds in Winfield there wasn't enough of interest to keep me there. Going on up to Derby, over halfway to Wichita, there was even less. Checking email when I got home there was a message from Fedex informing me that a package had been delivered. I like this new wrinkle in shipping biz, as I don't always remember to check for deliveries. In this case the merchandise was a 30 x 3 inner tube I ordered from Coker Tire in Chattanooga three days ago. Fellow old car aficionado Mark had emailed wondering if the new tube would purport to fit two sizes of tire like the one he recently received from Lang's. Nope. I didn't even have to blow it up. Just out of the package it was obviously a 30 x 3 tube, and I found it marked as such. The box was unlabeled, but the Hartford brand was stamped on the tube as usual. I cut off the rubber stem and installed a metal one. Why didn't I just buy a metal-stemmed tube? Because it costs about $15 more. The afternoon mail brought the spindle arm I bought this week, so I painted it and will bake it overnight. Treat night dinner was enchiladas blancas at La Fiesta. The movie was Champions. We've been here before. A down and-out coach takes a bunch of misfits and turns them into a winning team. The twist here is that the misfits are mentally challenged. Familiarity of the format doesn't mean it can't be a good movie. Woody Harrelson, Kaitlin Olson, and the rest of the cast, directed by Bobby Farrelly , make this one heartwarming and fun.

Sunday, March 26, 2023

Success! (Of a minor sort.) Looking into the box of tire stuff I carry in the car — patches, valves, rubber cement, etc. — I found the missing rim nut and put it back on the car. Thus reminded of the box, I stuck my spare dust cover in there in case I lose one. I need to look for another spare cover or two at swap meets where they're likely to be cheap, because new ones are about $19 each. But I digress (one of my favorite activities). I went to the box of tire stuff for rubber cement and a patch. When I installed the metal stem in that new tube yesterday I ended up with a small split beside the stem. I hope the patch will seal it. I squashed the patch in my press for a couple of hours, installed the bridge washer and rim nut, and aired up the tube. So far it's holding air.

Monday, March 27, 2023

Drat! That tube has a slow leak. My testing tank will be ice-free tomorrow, and I'll see if I can find exactly were the leak is. About the only work I got done today was downloading all the Minnesota county maps to my digital atlas on flash drive. I now have eighteen states covered. That includes Oregon, Wyoming, and Nevada in the West, and New Jersey and Pennsylvania in the East. The other thirteen are all in the middle of the country. I'm not looking forward to Ohio, where you have to get all the maps from the individual counties (if they have them). The best setup I've found so far is on the Wyoming DOT website, where you can download all the city and county maps together. The worst is Colorado, where all the maps are in some weird kind of file my computer won't open.

Tuesday, March 28, 2023

Going to the clinic for my annual blood test ate up the morning. This time the blood taker hit a vein and got all she needed on the first stab. Sometimes it takes multiple punctures to hit a gusher. The doc doubled my dosage of Metoprolol, which is supposed to get my racing ticker down to a normal pace but hasn't had much effect so far. We'll see how that goes. She says the tachycardia isn't going to kill me, but it's a stress I'd prefer to do without. I wondered why my pulse rate would average in the seventies for 81 years, then suddenly jump to 120+. She had no idea. Getting prescriptions filled and stopping at the market for bananas, I got home after two. I spent a couple of hours trying to find out what kind of bracket I need to mount my Stewart speedometer swivel. A suggestion on the Model T forum steered me to a 1911-1914 bracket on the Lang's website. But another look at my swivel showed that it wouldn't fit that bracket. I expect I'll end up making a part that works.

Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Well, I started work on that speedometer swivel mounting bracket. I am slow, and it's nowhere near finished. So that story will be continued tomorrow. I'm about out of firewood in the house, so I'll need to do some splitting tomorrow too. There will soon be more evenings when I don't need a fire, but some years the burning season isn't completely over until the end of April. There are other things I need to do too, but this tachycardia thing has robbed me of some pep. I'm not feeling any pain, just tired a lot of the time, and short on ambition.

Thursday, March 30, 2023

Drat! I wrecked that bracket, trimming it down too far on the lathe, and had to start over. Fortunately I had another junk ½" engine bolt to start with. I got it turned down to the right diameter and threaded for a ⅜-24 nut without ruining it. Next will come a bit of welding, which is on tomorrow's agenda. I had to quit at four today and drive to Hesston for a club meeting. I'm in two Model T clubs, and going to a meeting of either one takes a drive halfway across the state. I drive modern most of the time, but when the weather is friendly I aim to go to a meeting or two by Model T.

Friday, March 31, 2023

This was going to be the day to finish that bracket. But that called for a bit of welding, and I quickly reached the end of my acetylene. At least it wasn't a weekend, and I was able to take the empty tank to town and exchange it for a full one. While I was in town for that and groceries I stopped at the Burford and got my ticket for the film festival tonight and tomorrow night. The Burford, which opened in 1924, in recent years has been restored to ts original glory. The Bison Bison festival was held at the old Poncan Theater in Ponca City for seven years, then last year moved to the Burford. Of the several films screened this evening, my favorite was Sacrament, in which the grandparents want the baby baptized, one parent is dead set against it, and the other parent is caught in the middle. From the very first frame, practically every shot was an artistic composition. The actors were good, the lighting was well done, the sound was clear. But the way the director set up the shots was most impressive, and the visual artistry didn't distract from the story.