Friday, September 2, 2022
It's 9:40 PM and I'm sitting in front of a fan enjoying a cold Corona while I update the blog. I spent the day preparing to hit the road tomorrow. That included doing laundry so I'll have clean sox to take, and lots of packing. Of course that included figuring out where to put things, with stuff I'll need often easiest to reach and things less likely to to be needed toward the bottom of the pile. This evening I aired up the tires and drove to town to fill the tank. It's a good thing I did, as it was down to just one gallon. I don't like driving at night by magneto lights, but this was a very familiar road with no surprises, so it was OK. I still have a few more things to pack, but I don't expect that to take long. I'll probably get a couple hundred miles down the road and remember something I forgot, but I'm not going to worry about it. That's a traditional part of every trip.
Saturday, September 3 — Saturday, September 17, 2022
Didja miss me? I didn't get far down the road before a computer failure kept me from posting anything online. Now that I'm home I can catch up. Rather than duplicate my efforts here and on Facebook, I'm posting it all on the Model T Forum. You can check in there to see the full account of the trip, with photos. It will take a few days for me to post everything.
Sunday, September 18, 2022
I spent the morning on a bit of catching up on the forum and doing some unloading of equipment. In the afternoon I did more unloading, then went to town for shopping. After chow this evening I was so pooped that had to lie down for a nap.
Monday, September 19, 2022
Most of today's activities had to do with catching up after being away. I drove down to Topper Auto and paid a bill for work on the Suburban, to the pharmacy for eye drops, to the hardware store for a grommet set, and to the post office to pick up the mail. I posted more of my trip report on the forum (see Saturday's link) and emailed a link to it to a friend. It seems there was no rain while I was gone, and I watered several suffering plants. I'm afraid a couple of the little trees are too far gone for my watering to revive them. I also made an interesting discovery about the runabout. I've been giving it two or three chokes before turning on the ignition and trying to start it, and it's taken a lot of crank pulling to get it going, sometimes up to a dozen pulls. Today I tried starting it cold with no choking at all and it fired on the third pull. Apparently I've been flooding it.
Tuesday, September 20, 2022
Not much variety today. While I ran a trickle of water on several desperate trees, I continued posting my trip report on the Model T forum and spent hours on the phone with Cox trying to get the email on my desktop computer to work reliably. This evening it still refuses to send a message, and I still have to do that on my laptop. Sigh... Tonight I had my penultimate beer of the summer. For me a beer after dinner is a hot weather indulgence. Very rarely do I have a second, and never a third. There's one more Corona in the fridge, tomorrow is the last day of summer, and the forecast says it will be the last hot day.
Wednesday, September 21, 2022
Summer ended as a scorcher. Bank signs in town showed 102º and 103º this afternoon. I saw them on the return trip from Winfield, where I went to buy money. The county seat has the only bank in these parts where I can get rolls of dollar coins and halves, or $100 in twos. I find dollars in my pocket more convenient than paper singles in a billfold, and I carry a few twos in a shirt pocket where they're easy to reach. The halves are just for the entertainment of spreading panic and confusion among folks who don't know what they are. While I was in Winfield I rolled into the Dillons filling station with the T running out of gas and sputtering , and filled up for $3.379 a gallon, 22¢ a gallon less than the $3.599 in Arkansas City. The price down here being so much higher than in a town only ten miles away inspires plenty of griping on local Facebook pages.
Thursday, September 22, 2022
The first day of fall began at 58º and warmed up to 60º, a cool 42º less than the high yesterday, the last day of summer. .28" inches of rain in the morning made puddles in the usual places, but quickly soaked into the parched ground. It may help some of the plants a little, but wasn't the good, deep soaking we really need. Today I spent some time continuing my trip account on the forum, then set about replacing a burned out headlamp bulb on the runabout. That's not as simple as it sounds. Over the years I've acquired various bulbs at auctions and swap meets. While they all have bases that fit the sockets, they're not completely the same. The magneto lights are wired in series, like old time Christmas tree lights. When one goes out the circuit is broken and they're both out. If they're not quite the same, one may glow extra brightly and the other not at all, and the extra bright one may burn out in less than a minute. I ran out of time before I could find the right pair of matching bulbs, so I'll have to finish that job tomorrow. This evening I closed the windows at least two weeks earlier than usual, lit a fire in the kitchen stove and had hot soup for dinner. This was a one-off. We won't get back to 100º, but the next several days will be warmer than today's surprising chill.
Friday, September 23, 2022
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At auctions and swap meets over the years I've bought a few dozen bulbs that fit magneto headlamp sockets. Not all were intended to be used for magneto lights, but most will serve to varying degrees. One requirement, with the lights connected in series, is that both bulbs be similar in resistance. If they're not, one will be bright and the other dim. In some cases, one will be very bright (and my burn out quickly) while the other provides a ground but doesn't light up. One of the bulbs in my car burned out yesterday, so today I tested bulbs looking for a replacement. The ideal combination is two of the same bulb. I decided to make a mag bulb tester that will work from a battery so I won't have to run the car for testing. None of the local parts stores had the proper sockets, of course, so I have to wait for a pair to come from the internet sometime next week. From reading you might think that mag bulbs are likely to last only a few hours or a few days. But the one I have to replace was in the car for at least two years. I don't usually shut off the headlights. When the car is running they're on. So this pair got over 4000 miles of use before one of them went.
This evening I finished my trip story on the MTFCA forum. You can see it at the link posted above under September 3.
Saturday, September 24, 2022
This morning Shorty and I went to Winfield in the runabout. There were three auctions, and I checked out all three to see if there was anything I wanted. Nope. At the first place Shorty jumped out of the car and went exploring. She didn't come back and get in the car when I called. I had to put a leash on her and lead her back. Usually she stays in the car, but occasionally she yields to temptation and jumps out. I'm not having any more of that, so on the way home I stopped at the farm supply and got a spring clip I'll use with a bit of rope to anchor her leash to the car. When I got home I loaded saved cans, glass jars and bottles, and plastics in the Camry and took them to the recycling center. In the afternoon I cleaned the runabout's parking space in the shop, put flattened boxes on the floor to catch the drips, and backed the car in. It has developed a leak that's more than a little drip, and I need to find it and stop it. About three I headed for Wichita for my Saturday night out, stopping on the way to stock up on Diet Squirt, which is not sold down here in Podunk. After a tasty dinner at Mexico Viejo I went to see Avatar in Imax 3-D. I saw it when it was first released, in 2009, but not in Imax. I had forgotten what a great movie it is. Visually it's both beautiful and spectacular. The cast is top notch, the script is well written, and the attention to detail is that overworked word — awesome. Some directors don't know how to use 3D, but using a 3-D system of his own invention, James Cameron shows here that he is a master of the art. Even if Cameron had never made another movie (sequels are in the works), this one would establish him as a great director.
Sunday, September 25, 2022
In Rip Van Winkle mode, I didn't get up until after ten. I was catching up on the website when I had another call from Jesus. No, not the guy with all the churches. Think "Heysoos". It's an interesting story. He was born in Fremont, NE, but when he was two his mom was deported back to Mexico and he went with her. He lived with her down in Guerrero for fourteen years, then came back to Nebraska when he was sixteen, and is now a university student in Lincoln. He phoned me after discovering my YouTube videos, and we have visited by phone a few times since. This afternoon I examined the runabout for oil leaks, and found one at the front valve cover. I took off the cover, cleaned it up, slathered on a new layer of sealant, and reinstalled it. I need to clean all the oil off the rest of the engine before I run it again so I can see if there are other leaks I need to fix.
Monday, September 26, 2022
Last night and this morning I updated two of this website's Model T pages based on recent experience.
BATTERIES FOR NON-STARTER MODEL T's
INSTALLING A SPEEDOMETER
In the shop today I continued my pursuit of oil leaks. With paper towels and lacquer thinner I cleaned the bottom of the engine and transmission, and ran the car for several minutes to warm up and circulate the oil, then looked for new drips. I found a few around the inspection cover, and discovered that the capscrews holding it weren't very tight. So I tightened all those, plus the transmission cover bolts. That, and the valve cover sealant I added yesterday, seemed to stop the oil leaks, but I'm not going to declare victory until I see what happens when I drive the car a few miles. I also discovered a drip from the carburetor, so I'll need to fix that too. While I was under there I went to work on my under-the-running-board fuel shut-off, which was stuck. The little clamp holding the linkage to the valve handle was loose and turned out of position, so I'm making a spacer that will fit inside the clamp to make it tight. As Martynn Vowell says, the fun never quits.
Tuesday, September 27, 2022
Once again, everything takes longer than you think it will. But first, I started getting ready for Hershey next week. It's been estimated that covering the world's largest automotive swap meet, or flea market as they call it back east, adds up to about 25 miles of walking spread over three days. So before I go I'm walking three miles every morning to get in shape for it. I used to jog the three miles, but since I had a hip starting to go south I walk to take it easy on the old joints. In the shop I worked on that fuel shut-off, and though it took all day I finally got it done. That's one job on the runabout done, and forty-eleven more to do.
Wednesday, September 28, 2022
Dang! When I weighed this morning I found that in the ten days since I returned from the OCF trip I have gained ten pounds. Too much soup and crackers, I guess. Cream of tomato, cream of mushroom, cream of celery, etc. Tonight I used up the last of the milk, so no more soup for awhile. I'll see if I can shed those pounds as fast as I gained them. My work in the shop today was making and installing new spark plug wires in the runabout. I spent over an hour online looking for 200 watt soldering irons, then found that I already had one I had picked up at an auction long ago and had forgotten. The sockets I ordered Friday arrived in today's mail, so I got a start on making a tester for magneto headlamp bulbs. That's a simple thing I should finish up easily tomorrow morning.
Thursday, September 29, 2022
As Red Skelton's mean widdle kid used to say, "I dood it." What I dood was finish making that mag bulb tester, which I then used to sort through my box of bulbs in search of good ones. In this context good means not only functional, but in matching pairs that light brightly and evenly. When bulbs used in a series circuit aren't matched, one will most likely be brighter than the other. Sometimes one will be super bright and the other so "dim" that it doesn't light at all. Another job today was packing that defunct laptop for return. The company emailed me a shipping label which I printed and put on the package. But when I phoned Fedex for a pickup I was told I had to give the shipper's account number. So I called one of the phone numbers on the label. Out of service. I called the other number on the label and got a recording telling me to leave my number and somebody would call me back "as soon as possible". Nobody ever did.
Friday, September 30, 2022
Normally I leave my windows open from late May to early October, but last night I closed my bedroom windows a little early. The thermometer on the wall read 72º F, but the air coming in the windows was nowhere near that warm. I expect by the end of October I'll have the comforter and electric blankets on my bed. One of my activities today was adding new material to my web page about magneto lights. I was going to try again to get that computer outfit's Fedex account number, but then I remembered that there's a Fedex drop-off box in town, so when I went to the post office to have my mail held next week I took my package and dropped it in the Fedex box.
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