wayne sheldon

I don't think that little engine could handle 70 mph. But neither will my 1915 model T. And those are a lot of fun!

Looks good to me. Probably a 1924, could even be 1925.The worst thing I see about it is the interior appears to basically nothing.

The OP car, splitting the hood off that way, makes the side of the car look like a half painted fence.

I remember your postings here before. Beautiful and rare car! Good luck with the auction.

For anyone not familiar with these, that side bolt isn't actually an "adjustment" per se. Although it is in a sense an "adjustment". Clear as mud? It is necessary for the threaded fit onto the hub to be loose enough to twist on as needed. Not being locked really really tight onto the hub threads, if a wheel resists being pulled, and a bit much force is put onto the bolt against the axle end? Sometimes the slight looseness in the threads will allow the threads on either the hub or the puller to strip off, usually damaging both the hub and the puller. The hub pullers with the side slit and the "tightening bolt" greatly reduce that risk if properly used. Before putting the hub puller onto the hub, back out the knocker bolt (hits against the end of the axle), back off the tightening bolt, and check for fit onto the hub's threads. If the fit is good? Spin the hub puller as far onto the hub's threads as it is willing to go. Then tighten the side bolt across the slit. Don't go crazy with it, high torque is not needed, but about a box end wrench amount of tight. That clamps the threads as deep as they want to go, and seizes the hub as tight as the puller is capable of. Then twist the end bolt down tightly against the axle end inside. Wrench it fairly hard! Then if needed, tap the head of that end bolt with a medium hammer. If needed, tighten, tap, tighten, tap, and tighten again. Hopefully by this time the wheel is sitting in your lap. It is still possible to strip the threads with this type of puller. Personally, I have really gotten onto a few pretty hard! I haven't stripped one of this type yet. Measuring the size? Should be done with the side bolt loosened. IF the puller hasn't been distorted by over tightening, the thread size should be measured like the non-clamping type pullers. I have seen ones that someone tried to force onto a smaller size. But all they managed to do was ruin a good puller. They will not pull down far enough to fit a smaller hub. In the photos? This one looks like a very nice puller. If it is the size you need.

It is all interesting stuff! I figured you probably had considerable knowledge yourself. Part of my intention in posting was to make other people reading your thread to give some thought to the reasons behind some of the things we do. In the whatever it is worth department, and forgive a hopefully short thread drift? My great great grandfather was one of the survivors of the steam riverboat Sultana's explosion after the ending of the Civil War. If he had died, I wouldn't be here now. One of the causes of the explosion was a patched fracture in one of the boilers. The actual death count was never known, as the boat had been overloaded, and they quit taking count or names. 1800 people were known killed, and the actual count is believed to have been a few hundred more. But that was a somewhat larger boiler. So much history to learn about!

Sounds good. Brass rivets and the parts car.

To me, it looks like a picture frame. I doubt that it is automotive. It isn't finished on the back side, which it would be if it were to be used in an automobile folding top. And the glass mounting is substantial enough for the bouncing and shaking of a moving automobile. Could be a decorative window to go in a house alongside the staircase? (But I doubt that also for attachment reasons?) I have (packed away somewhere) something similar but quite different that has very old family photos in it.

Nate, I had read your comment about getting those fenders from the go-to Dort fellow. They don't look very bad at all! You should have seen my 1915 model T Ford fenders before I restored them. They were all really nasty. Now they are far from perfect, but reasonably straight, fairly smooth, and black. I couldn't afford to buy nice original fenders, everyone wanted too much for them. And the reproductions were just as much, and silly me, I wanted original steel on my 1915 car. I really like the Dort. And it appears that you are doing a fine job of bringing this one back.

That price drop hurts! I wish I could.

Now that is a beautiful Buick! Op? Not so much.

I wonder what it really was way back when? It looks like someone tried to make it look earlier than the claimed 1935. It actually doesn't look horrible.

Certainly, the other one is the better buy. Especially if one wants a basically "like original" 1934 Ford. However, if someone couldn't scrape up that much more cash, and wanted to do the restoration themselves? This one might be alright. And if they could knock a few thousand off this one's price? So much the better. Unfortunately, this one is more likely headed to rod territory. Sadly, both of them could go that way.

Looking good! But I can hardly wait for you to replace those model T fenders.

Glad you got that rim! That size and style could be very difficult to get. Just some things to think about and consider while doing your pressure testing. The reason behind putting water in the tank for pressure testing isn't that it is easier to pump up to the testing range pressure. Although that is a side effect of the real reason. IF (big IF again) a tank were to explode while being tested? It is the pressure, how many hundreds of pounds per square inch, that will cause the rupture. Damage, on the other hand, is a matter of the expansion ratio of the material inside and under that pressure. Air can be compressed a tremendous amount, hundreds to one in extreme pressures. Water (most liquids to some extent?), on the other hand, does not want to compress hardly at all. Forget hundreds to one, not even two to one under extreme pressures. IF a tank ruptured and exploded? The difference in explosive force from say a five gallon container between 100 percent air versus less than five percent air with over 95 percent water, is about the difference between a stick of dynamite versus a small firecracker that you could actually hold in your open hand and only get a second degree burn. If the conditions were right (not too many cubic feet inside, tightly closed doors and small windows?), A twenty gallon tank with only air inside at high pressure could literally blow the roof off your garage! Mostly water inside? Things might get wet, and your test stand might be broken. But I still wouldn't recommend standing too close. Illustrating the point.

Very important advice. All brake rivets should be brass. This doesn't get said often enough, but it has been learned the hard way by many thousands of people over the years. I learned it the easy way, by listening to a brake expert a long long time ago. However, since then I have seen it nearly a hundred times happening to other people or in cars that I bought. Brass plated steel will not do! And believe me, this I have seen many times, a LOT of brass plated steel rivets are made and sold as "brass" rivets. What happens is in the somewhat enclosed but not water-tight environment that the brake linings do their work? A combination of water (just splashing a small puddle!) and heat from running and friction caused the steel to rust through the brass plating. Iron-oxide granules are extremely abrasive. So much so that they are one of the common abrasives used in sandpaper, and sometimes cutoff or grinding stones. The rust from the steel rivet flakes off, shakes or falls loose, then embeds itself in the softer brake lining. A few hundred microscopic granules trailing the rivet and the brake lining itself becomes a cutting tool. The granules begin cutting a groove in the brake drum. The surrounding lining wears down a bit in turn raising by comparison the cutting groove where the iron-oxide is embedded. Smaller braking surfaces speeds up the wear. The cutting edges become higher, surrounding lining wears faster. And before you are aware of it, your brake drum is ruined. It can happen surprisingly fast, in surprisingly few (couple to few thousand miles maybe?) miles. Fifty years ago, I bought a car, was told it had new brakes. I put several thousand miles on it, and started hearing some noise when using the brakes. In a hurry, I pulled the front hubs and checked the linings and drums. They looked like new. In those days, bonded linings were a new option, and the fronts were bonded. But I was in a hurry. So I put off looking at the rears. Two days later I suddenly lost all braking going down a very steep hill toward a red traffic light. I was lucky, fate favored the foolish. One of the fourteen red lights I went through in my life (so far?) had no cross traffic at that moment and I safely navigated to a gentle stop. It was night, and I carefully eased the car home. The next day, I looked under the car and oh what I saw! The rear brake shoes turned out to be riveted, and the rivets were steel. That new brake, in "several" thousand miles had cut through and separated the drum's braking surface from the hub. Being a single master cylinder car, all brakes failed to operate once the drum broke apart and stretched allowing the shoes to expand beyond their limit. Analyzing after-the-fact, I determined that the noise I started to hear was that the surrounding lining had worn down so far so fast that I was hearing the ends of the worn shoes starting to hit the drums, just before the high ridges finished cutting through the cast iron drum. For whatever it is worth? I have personally seen dozens of drums destroyed by iron-oxide embedded brake linings over the years. One doesn't hear about this problem much anymore. Between bonded linings and disc brakes, it doesn't occur except in the antique automobile hobby. However, here, it is still a very important safety issue! Test your rivets! If a magnet will pick them up? Get real brass rivets.

Fantastic!

Wow. That is an incredible model, a true work of art.

Not much room in the back seat, but WOW! If I had the money I think I would be jumping at this one and quick! I have always really liked a lot of the off-beat style cars that came along in the roaring '20s! And this may not be the best of them, but I think it is great! Rickenbacker did built a very large oval window brougham, a truly incredible looking automobile! But this one isn't one of those. It is one of the smaller Rickenbacker models. Twenty some years ago, one of the few times I actually went to a collector car auction, there was an unrestored similar model Rickenbacker, a two-door sedan/coach. I looked it over quite a bit, but did not stick around to see what it sold for (conflicting plans). It wasn't an impressively big car, but still had a good look to it. But not nearly as neat looking as this one!

So, is it twelve thousand or six thousand? Either way it is a LOT of work to be done.

That is a lot of money per pound! A lot more than the steak I barbecued for dinner a couple nights ago. I love those depression era Willys cars. As others have said, just don't see them very often at all.

The area that attached to the radiator neck looks like the heat got to the pot metal a bit. I suspect that a steel piece could be made fairly easily to bolt on from the inside to allow use of this flip-top cap along with a Motometer or goddess of your choice. If I had an appropriate car for this cap? That is what I would do. But I don't. so I won't.

A new one for me.

With that odd side connection? I have doubts you can get a shrink tubing to go on it that is small enough to shrink. If your main concern is the shrinkage of the insulation pulling back from the connector? The big question is how pliable the insulation is overall. Minor pull-back isn't a serious problem in itself. But it could be indicative of insulation deterioration leading to soon begin breaking up. Which in turn could quickly lead to shorting of the wiring. If the insulation appears to be live enough (supple enough?), a reasonable fix would be to "paint" the ends with shellac. Shellac has been used as an electrical insulation for way over a hundred years. Be very careful to NOT get any inside the connector or onto the pins those connectors slide onto as it is a very good insulator and once accidentally applied you might have a devil of a time getting it to make contact again! It may be necessary to clean the wire and insulation before applying the shellac. I am not sure what would be best these days. I used to use old fashion paint thinner. It had a good balance of removing oil and other contaminants quickly while attacking the original insulation very slowly. That is where the hazard is. Most cleaners will also have a "drying" effect on the original insulation. You want to minimize that. Drying of the insulation will eventually lead to more shrinkage, loss of flexibility, cracking, breaking, and exposing wires to shorting. Most alcohol and/or petroleum based cleaners will have some such effect. Most other cleaners will leave a residue that will prevent the shellac from sticking properly. Quickly washed, blow dry (not hot!), then a drop to several drops of shellac over the end of the original insulation to over the crimped attachment of the end connector and the wire. One could try an eye dropper? I usually used either a toothpick or very small artist's brush. In a past life, a long time ago, I did a lot of electronic repair work. Some things have changed since then. Chemicals and materials we used that worked very well are no longer available for all sorts of silly reasons. (Good paint thinner being one of them?) And, I don't often recommend products, or generally believe in "magic elixirs". However. one exception I do make is "DeoxIT", by Caig. If you are having problems with electrical connections not making good connections? DeoxIT might be the magic elixir. I worked in communications systems contracting (for over thirty years). We took care of all sorts of systems within a three hundred by two hundred mile rectangle encompassing the entire San Francisco Bay Area and beyond (and sometimes even farther away!). Much of our work was keeping systems built by others working. Often, equipment wasn't the best available. Connector failures were common, slightly incompatible metal interfaces everywhere. Being near the coast with prevailing winds from the ocean, even a hundred miles inland was affected by salt in the air. Equipment was almost always designed and (then) manufactured back East. They did not have nor understood our problem because they didn't have it. Literally hundreds of pieces of equipment was requiring servicing once or twice per year due to connection failures. This went on for more than a decade. Contact cleaners came and went, most would sort of work for awhile. Then back to failure mode again. Then one day, we heard from a technical supplier about this new product, just came out. It was expensive, but he said it was worth it. So we bought a can (forty years ago a two ounce can was fifteen dollars!). It was made from some exotic natural plant oil found only in the tropics (sounds silly, but if it works?), which chemically reversed the oxidation on electrical contacts, allowing them to function properly again. Then leaving a thin coating of oil preventing corrosion for a considerable amount of time. By the way, it takes only a tiny amount to do the job, less is better, so it really wasn't that expensive to use. We experimented with it. Having a stack of equipment that had failed due to cheap switches losing contact internally, we squirted a small amount into the switch and they became useful again. Pieces of equipment that we couldn't rely on to work for two weeks suddenly became reliable again! And single applications wound up lasting for years! Caig does manufacture and sell cheaper variations, Thinned exotic oil, other additives not really needed. When I spoke to their home office about ten years ago they flat out told me they do so because that is what the customers want. But they loved hearing from me, all I wanted was one more can of the good stuff (which I could not buy locally!). Don't cheap out! Buy the good stuff (I am notoriously a cheapskate!) It works better and last longer! My remaining can has "Part no; D100S-2. There are a few certain types of circuits that the product should not be used in. Certain types of high voltage detection of switching circuits. Should not be a problem in an automotive application. I hope the moderators can see fit to keep this post intact. It is a great product that could have many good applications in collector cars. And I rarely make product recommendations.

Oy! I am sorry I saw this. Where to begin???? There are some nice things about it. I think? But if someone spent 30K "restoring" this? They should have done some research first. Who built that radiator? It is completely wrong, the hood doesn't fit properly at all! It looks like someone that had never seen one tried to build one from a single bad photograph. The top is really messed up. We used to see this fairly often when people that did NOT know model Ts had some trimmer (often a boat shop) that had never looked at a model T before do the custom top. The forward bow that meets the windshield being an early style "two-man top" has two positions. One position for when the top is up. And the other position to neatly fold the top in the down position. When fitting a new top, The forward sockets and bow ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY M-U-S-T be in the "top up position!!! But, no, they did the top with the forward sockets and bow in the "down position. That means the top material was miss-cut (too small!) and nailed together with everything in the wrong places. Headlight lenses are 1920s, chrome rims are wrong. Windshield is assembled backwards. Steering wheel spider is 1920s style, wooden rim might be some sort of after-market (which by itself might be fine?) I don't know what sort of lever that weird chrome looking knob is on? The car doesn't have a Ruckstell. But the ad says "rare two speed"? I want to know what about it is rare? Henry Ford built fifteen million "two speed" model Ts. The price actually isn't bad for a nice late brass model T. (Ad says $12,500.) But a buyer will need to correct a whole bunch bad screw-ups if they want to have a model T that doesn't stick out like a sore thumb everywhere it goes. I didn't mention everything I saw, and there are probably a bunch more that don't show up in the pictures?