wayne sheldon

NICE!! Congratulations.

Ed, Your point is well taken, and I agree with you. It is unfortunate, that a lot of genuine cars will not get the respect they deserve because while a car may or may not be real? The documentation for them simply does not exist. But that, is a fact of life. As I have said, on this particular model T? I will not take a side. In part because I am frankly a bit too close to it. I personally know a few people very passionately on one side or the other. And I wasn't close enough to make a solid commitment to either side. My somewhat lengthy posts are intended to put the car, and its issues, in some reasonable framework for those here not familiar with it. It is not a "fake" nearly in the sense of hundreds of "brass era" model Ts built out of a bunch of 1920s parts and modern reproduction nearly half of it. More of this car is original 1909 pieces than nearly half the brass model Ts on most HCCA tours are their genuine year pieces. But is this particular car the true earliest model T in existence? I know people that passionately believe that it is! And I know people that absolutely believe that it is NOT! Adequate documentation does not appear to exist (and several people have been looking for it for a long time now!). And I do not know the answer for certain either way. I do know that a lot of original pieces were, and needed to be, replaced when the car was restored. But that is true for a lot of even the finest collector cars. And most of those replacements for this car, were proper era correct parts. (Excluding of course tires, paint, upholstery materials etc etc etc.)

Funny how things go around. About twenty years ago, I almost bought (probably?) that Pioneer cyclecar! We were looking for a two cylinder car to buy, and my wife found the red Pioneer cyclecar on ebay. It was a little more money than I was prepared to spend, and not quite what I was looking for. But if the wife likes it? Big plus! We ended up getting something else, and I lost track of the Pioneer. If things had gone just a bit differently? Twenty years ago it might have been me trying to sort out this ignition system! Now here we are, twenty years later, discussing it. Not many Pioneer cyclecars around, and the same color? Almost has to be the same one.

Fifty years ago, I had a cheap bicycle tire pump, had had it for several years. And it broke. It had the usual thread on connector for the valve stem (hard to find these days, but still can be gotten!). The connector and hose were still okay' I took a rubber stem valve from a destroyed inner tube, using my pocket knife, carved the rubber off of the lower half of the stem, revealing the brass stem inside. Using a very small hose clamp, I attached the stem into the other end of the tire pump hose. That silly thing, is today hanging on a nail in my workshop! And is a cherished favorite tool! I do not need to fumble with valve stems sinking into the uninflated tire. I simply thread the short hose onto the stem, The connector is large enough that it usually prevents the new tube's stem from falling completely inside the rim. With the valve stem in the other end, and core in place, An easy two handed hold the air hose to the old tire pump hose and air goes in. Watch the new tube's valve stem, and guide it if necessary until sufficient pressure is inside the new tube. With the short hose having its own valve and core, I can walk away for a bit if I need to. Fiddle with guiding the new stem into place through the rim. Go back and add more air when ready. Talk about making the job easier! I also use it to keep my hands and arms out of the danger zone when airing up lock ring rims. I probably should have patented the silly idea fifty years ago?

I don't even need to look back at the photos again. I looked at all the listing photos a few weeks ago, and if you are referring to what I think you are referring to? It has been discussed on one of the few recent discussion threads about this car. There are actually two number "twos" on the right side of the block. One, a "cast in place" number two is almost an inch tall, and can be seen in a couple of the photos, down low on the cam side of the crankcase, just forward of the carburetor. That one is a mold number. Used by the Ford factory to track the quality of castings, molds, and patterns used in the casting process. I do not see any "crap" there. The other is shown in closeups, without good size references, and is rather small. It is a stamped numerical "2", and actually in this case double-stamped. The hammer and stamping die bounced, leaving a close over-strike "two". There is some "garbage", discoloration, to the right of that number two. That discoloration was discussed on recent threads (there are a few recent threads!) about the car. I did not participate in that discussion. However, their general consensus was the same conclusion as mine when I first looked at the photos. Clearly, it is discolored. Most likely a spot of rust that didn't get cleaned up in prepping the car for sale, because it is a small minor spot in a difficult small and almost impossible to see place. What you cannot tell in the photos, is that "2" is about a quarter inch tall, in the space about an inch and a half wide between number two and number three exhaust ports! That area, due to the exhaust heat, is prone to surface rust! The fact that that area would have some minor rust discoloration on a sixty year old restoration of a hundred and ten year old car is not surprising. Relevant historic details. Only the first few (fifty to maybe a hundred? I don't recall the actual number offhand?) model Ts had the serial number located between the manifold ports! The error was corrected very early, putting the serial number boss down front behind the timing gear where it remained until early in 1912. The cast in place mold number down on the side of the crankcase was in that location through most or all of 1909, and some or most of 1910. It is one of the first details purists look for in determining real from "fake" early engines. There are nearly a dozen details people like me look for in photos or in person to spot the real ones. Although some people have gone to great lengths to fake a later early block and pass it off as a real one? This one is almost definitely a real and very early block. Again, lack of adequate documentation when the car was restored has some people believing it was a somewhat later block and may have been altered? It would require some mount of invasive investigation to determine definitely one way or the other.

Wow! THANK YOU Dave! I learned some things today that I had not run into before. I may never yet need to know these things, however, just having read your excellent descriptions gives me satisfaction. And if I do run into something? Or maybe do enough work on my gasoline carriage, I might alter my plans? I have a beginning. Thank you.

Not wanting to start any debates about this car. There are enough of those already. And, if one wishes to follow the links provided ? (I have not at this time?) One could likely read the same arguments over and over again. And, probably see my name in several of them. So just some clarification for anyone wondering, but not wanting to spend half the afternoon reading old arguments. As far as I know, I have never been within a hundred feet of this particular car. Although it would have been very possible about fifty years ago when the car was still in Southern California, and I spent some time down there at meets it may have been at? But I hadn't gotten really interested in early model T Fords at that time, I was mostly looking at other horseless carriage era cars. I am not mentioning names, you can follow the links if you want to know them. I have listened to the stories as told by the family that had and "restored" this car back in the 1950s and 1960s. I know what they say and believe. I also know a few of the doubters personally, and I have no reason to "doubt" their doubts. So, I am not taking sides. In my view, there is little doubt that this car is one of the best restored and "most correct original era parts" earliest Ts in the world. But IS it car number "2"? THAT is where the doubt is. The fellow that restored this car, AT THAT TIME, was one of the most knowledgeable people on the planet about the first year of model T Fords. But remember, at that time, most knowledge in the hobby was from faulty memories! People in the hobby just didn't really know one tenth of what we know today. The early Ford archives were buried in filthy warehouses, none of it sorted or cross referenced in any way. People like me hadn't yet spent thousands of hours studying era photographs, looking for all the little details, trying to sort out time lines. On the flip side, in those days, real genuine first year parts showed up at most hobby swap meets! I remember some of the swap meets I went to in those days having a dozen sellers with piles of 1909 and 1910 parts! And the fellow that restored this car knew what he was looking for. Unfortunately. The fellow that "restored" this car was guilty of a mistake that I am also very guilty of. NOT taking enough photos or documenting the facts and details as he went along. To make that matter worse, several of the photos (his and other people's!) claimed to be car number 2 before restoration? Have been studied enough, in spite of poor quality, to determine that they were in fact photos of a different car! This WILL be a problem for anyone reading old discussions about this car, and ironically to a lesser extent also car number 222 (currently on display at the Ford Piquette Plant Museum). Over the years, several people got their photos mixed up, along with a couple other very early unrestored model Ts. So if you decide to read through a bunch of past discussions? Keep in mind that not all photos are correctly identified. The car's story goes that it was discovered, purchased and resold, eventually going to the fellow that restored it. It was claimed to be car number 2. It was restored as such. But a lot of pieces on the car were wrong, or in poor condition. The fellow that "restored" the car already had most of the proper pieces to replace the wrong parts. I suspect that he also may have replaced some correct pieces simply because the original was in poor condition and he had better ones. There weren't many people in the world at that time better suited to do the restoration, and do it properly. If only he had kept a lot better documentation of the work done and parts replaced. What it is? Is one of the finest examples of the early "two lever" model Ts on the planet. That alone is enough to justify (to some that can afford it?) a lot of dollars. What it is not? Is well enough documented to truly support the claim to being any specific early two lever Ford. I said I will not take sides on this. But I will say, it very well may have some amount of car number two in there. Or it may not? I just do not know. The second lever replaces the reverse pedal. As I understand it, for reverse, one needs to operate the clutch by either pressing the low/clutch pedal, or pulling the brake/clutch lever halfway back at the same time as pulling the reverse lever! Switching to the three pedal one lever method was a considerable improvement! And you should look at the convoluted conglomeration of cams, detents, rods and levers it took to make that system work!

Pretty sure it is an Auburn. Some good friends have a 1917, this would be closer to 1920.

One can sure see the Lozier connection! A very good friend years ago had a 1915 Lozier.

Stutz Bearcat? Anything known about it? A friend had one, black, quite awhile ago. He died just about twenty years ago now. He was too young, ALS, a nasty way to go. Last I heard, his family still had the car. I got to follow it and him on a few club tours, always fun to see cars like that being driven as they were intended. We had a wonderful group that used to do a lot of special tours together. Quite often we would end up where a silent movie was being shown, usually with proper theatre organ accompaniment. Sometimes we went to Turk Murphy's "Earthquake McGoon's for his San Francisco Jazz music and dancing! I sure miss those days. We usually wore attire appropriate for the era of our cars, and attended club tours often as a group.

Ain't THAT the truth! I have seen a lot of Rolls Royce automobiles I would love to have, and known quite a few people that do have them. Including a few that are not wealthy. I have had a few opportunities to buy a Rolls Royce. Gotta tell you that I was tempted! But wisely talked myself out of the idea. Anything I could have managed to buy? I could have never gotten restored.

Very nice. I like to see this kind of artifact, especially if it is historically tied to a specific automobile! Thank you for sharing this.

So the "magazine" is "courtesy of the CCCA", but the planned tour targets the HCCA? And one of the smaller subsets of that? An advertising heavy, marginal quality articles publication? I would be suspicious. Sounds like they do not know what their focus is, other than selling advertising.

Beautiful car! Interesting history. A couple errors in the writeup. The 1903 Ford was a two cylinder, but about 100 Cubic inch. Packard had a two cylinder beginning in 1902, and introduced a four cylinder in 1903 according to the Kimes and Clark book.

So, what is the price now? (I don't do Facebook!) I have said it a hundred times! I would rather have the worst car on an antique club tour than the best car sitting in a garage!

Actually, they were cast iron heads on steel stems (cast in place!). With age, corrosion, and unknown miles and abuses, the heads have a nasty habit of breaking loose and dropping into the cylinder, usually at speed. Sometimes, an owner gets lucky. No serious damage. Other times, even good blocks can be practically destroyed if the valve head lodges just wrong between the piston and the engine head. Original two-piece valves should never be used in an engine that is going to be driven.

The thing I really seem to enjoy the most? Is repairing pieces, or "restoring" cars that several other people have declared unfixable! My 1915 model T runabout that I am trying to work on is one such car. The basic original car was in poor enough condition that it bounced from one person to another for twenty years, finally settling in a friends "behind the barn" for another decade or two. Anything that was any good? Someone along the line kept it! I already had collected a big pile of 1915 parts, most of them rejects from other people's restorations. The car is shaping up nicely, certainly NO show car. But for being mostly correct? Not many others can match it. And it is almost ALL original steel! (Except for small patch panels I made, some nuts and bolts, and a few later parts mostly unseen.) There is one significant piece of the car that is not a reject from someone else's (or several?) restoration. And that is the engine. I got lucky. I bought a crusted in dirt and grease long-block out of the estate of a long time model T driver. It was one of the last things out of the estate to be sold. It looked nasty, and like it had sat under a work bench for years! The price was right, and I had a few dollars to spare, so I took a chance. When I cleaned it up? It was one of the nicest low mileage engines I have ever seen! Someone had updated it (probably about 1950 from the look of it?) with newer timing gears and later lighter rods, bore was tight and standard. No significant rust anywhere. No apparent cracks. I replaced the two-piece valves and freshened it up a bit. I can hardly wait to hear it run! (It has been nearly ready for almost four years now, family needs got in the way.) Almost everything else, needed some significant repair. But if one piece is going to be the best part of all? The engine is the right piece.

The Marathon may be the car for which Checker is most remembered? But they were manufacturing their specialty automobiles (mostly for taxi service) in the 1920s as well as the 1930s and beyond. That said, I am fairly sure the car in question is not a Checker (although I am no expert on Checker cars!). I suspect it was some available fancy open front car. dressed up for the movie (as already mentioned?).

There were a few cars, including some Chryslers, that used these as factory standard or optional equipment. They were also sold as after-market accessories. There were a few municipal areas, mostly in the East, that required such marker lamps on all cars parked at night on their streets. I know Washington D. C., I think Boston? And some area around New York City were among the areas requiring such marker lamps. People that study era photographs often quickly identify Washington D. C. photos by the combination of marker lamps and two license plates on cars. In addition to requiring marker lamps, before the Fed required all states and other licensing jurisdictions to honor all other state licensing, the D. C. required regular drivers in the D. C. area to be licensed and display plates issued by the D. C. regardless of other licensing. Since MOST people working in the D. C. lived in surrounding states, and all of those states also required a state issued license? A very high percentage of the cars in the D. C. had to have two license plates. Since many thousands of other people living near state lines all around the country, also had to display two, sometimes three, and even four license plates for all the states they regularly drove in? Cars displaying multiple license plates were common all around the country. However, nowhere else had so many multiple license plates AND the marker lamps.

Rims need to be measured on the inside exactly where the tire bead sits against the rim. NOT the higher/farther out top of the edge of the rim! That is a common mistake these days. Not enough people working in the trades and sharing knowledge with their friends. And then people make incorrect assumptions and spread them around. I have met way too many people in recent years that were absolutely convinced that the wrong way was the right way. Of course, the "American English" versus European standards differences in this case doesn't help. I do wish I had a picture to post that would help. But I do not have one, and am not that computer literate. I hope I may have helped some?

Sounds like fun to me!

Thank you Jon for the additional information! All I have to go on is what I remember reading ten to twenty years ago when I was researching for my 1910 car (which I really wish I could get back!). All the paperwork and copies I had went with the car when I had to sell it.

If I recall correctly, the Schebler type D was an early series used on a number of very early cars on up to some automobiles around 1910. In addition to automobiles, they were used extensively on boats, farm, and industrial equipment, during the same era. If I recall correctly, a 1910 automobile I used to have was a type/model D Schebler originally. I managed to find an exact match to its missing original, but had to sell the car before I got it running or changed from the later replacement it had on it. Earliest versions began showing up about 1900 if I recall correctly. I am not sure how correct or incorrect a lot of what I have read really is. It would appear that these early Schebler carburetors are widely considered to be "model D" or "type D", but vary in size and configuration a great deal. I have a very early one that is similar in configuration to the one for the 1910 I used to have, but only about a quarter of the size (can't really be the same model?). But I have seen both of them referred to in print as "type" or "model" "D". The configuration for them often appears to vary a great deal as well. Again, from things I have read, they may be configured as either "side-draft" or "up-draft". Many of them have an odd "sliding" or "gate" valve for the throttle as opposed to the much better known "butterfly" valve used for more than a hundred years since. However, I have seen versions with butterfly valve like yours has. Whether your butterfly valve top piece is original to that carburetor or not? I do not know. I suspect that Schebler was trying to maintain a hold on their early market making a wide variety of configurations around a simple basic design, and in varying sizes. When I had my 1910 car, the more I found, saw, and read about these carburetors? The more fortunate I felt to have found and bought a carburetor that exactly matched the original manuals for the car! I didn't research the carburetors extensively. Basically trying to get a proper carburetor for my cars. But all I did read, and the several more knowledgeable people I spoke with, indicated that these Schebler carburetors are a minefield of misinformation with many variations and multiple sizes. Finding a specific car for which a given carburetor would be original to? May be very difficult!

1919 is actually quite a funky/difficult year. The first year for starter/generator, which included a new style dash with ammeter/switch panel. All of those parts are different and unique to 1919! It was also the first year for Ford to offer demountable rim wheels. Coupes and sedans began getting the demountable rim wheels as standard early in the 1919 model year, late in 1918 calendar year. The open body cars began getting demountable rim wheels as an option along about March (if I recall correctly?) of 1919. Although a lot of Ts continued getting the non-demountable wheels similar to what Ford had used for several years before. Most earlier T wheels had been "round felloe" style, however Ford switched to square fellow (cheaper to make) about 1918. The hubs were also being improved (as Terry B mentioned) about the same timeframe. The square felloe wheels continued to be offered as the cheap option until the end of model T production. There was also a steel felloe non-demountable wheel that was used by Ford on and off during the 1920s. Official records do state that the steel felloe non-demountable wheels would exclusively replace the wood felloe non-demountable wheels (with a couple different beginning dates!) during the early to mid 1920s. However, those records are clearly in error! Dozens of factory photos (I have seen from a major private collection!), as well as hundreds of original era photographs clearly show the wood felloe non-demountable wheels on model Ts well into 1927! The demountable rim wheels wheels for 1919 were not unique to that year, but they were not the more common ones that became the usual wheels a year or two later. Whether or not all that matters any to your clients or not? Depends on just how correct they want the car to be. And whether or not the car really is a 1919. A lot of model Ts have been misidentified for their year almost since new. Unmolested 1919s are fairly easy to identify by nearly a dozen little details. But most model Ts have been altered and repaired over the years using the more common later pieces which nearly all fit and work, at least somewhat. 1919 demountable rim wheels should be the "loose lug" type wheels, as opposed to the more common "fixed lug" wheels that showed up about a year later. The fixed lug wheels were manufactured by at least three different companies including inhouse at Ford. For many of the early to mid 1920s, the rims from one manufacturer would not properly fit the wheels of another manufacturer. Somewhere around 1924 Ford pushed the wheel manufacturers to standardize the fit.

Sure messed up. A wild guess? Flanders. I believe they had a small four full door touring in 1912, and I think they had full elliptic rear springs. Hood and radiator being gone doesn't help. Someone can look it up and prove me wrong.