wayne sheldon Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 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. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Dort Posted July 22 Author Share Posted July 22 Made some decent progress this weekend. First time welding anything ever and I was able to fix a few of the brake linkages. One had been partially cut and bent to compensate for another bent linkage. The others were extremely worn on account of the extra stress they were under. I built them up with weld then machined them back to the correct profile and painted. I don't have a good "before" shot, but you can see them in the pile here: Got the driver side brakes reassembled, then reinstalled the wheels temporarily so I could get the car on my wheel dollies and move it around the garage easier. I found a 30 mm ID x 50 mm OD x 60 mm L bronze bushing on ebay shipped from the UK, and it dropped into the transmission end of the torque tube with about 1/2 mm of play. This is to replace the destroyed babbitt bearing. I used a hand reamer to get the ID up to about 33 mm so it would fit over the drive shaft. Then I secured it into the torque tube with loctite 648 and drilled the grease passage. I also hand-cut some grease grooves with a dremel bit. It's not the prettiest work I've ever done, but I think it will work fine. Got the pinion end reassembled, complete with new seal, which rides on the OD of the adjustment nut. Then it was time to get the transmission mated to the engine. Spent a lot of time sorting through the big container of rusty fasteners that came with the car to find the proper bolts and lock washers. Cleaned them up with phosphoric acid overnight. The original manual shows and mentions a ball thrust bearing, but that apparently wasn't present on this engine. Just a big spring retainer and a castle nut. I don't see how I could get a bearing between the retainer and the nut, as the spring would be nearly fully compressed at that point. 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Dort Posted August 4 Author Share Posted August 4 Major milestone today. Got the engine reinstalled for the first time since it was rebuilt 25 years ago. I got a little ahead of myself and was about to put it back in earlier this week, then I looked at the engine mounts in the car and thought it better to replace the wood spacers between the cast iron mounts and the frame and also refinish the mounts themselves. They were pretty loose and the wood had obviously shrunk over the years. Glued up two pieces of scrap 3/4" plywood to get the proper 1.5" depth and cut/routed to the correct size and profile, then painted. Derusted and painted the mounts. New grade 8 bolts, because the rusted originals snapped almost instantly when I went to remove them. I roped my 8 and 9 year old sons into helping me maneuver it into place and installing the bolts. They were mildly intrigued by the process until it was done, then got bored and asked to go play Minecraft. Typical. Then I started working on reinstalling the torque tube. Setting the backlash and pinion depth took longer than it probably should have. First time ever doing it. Used some of my wife's art supplies to brush some titanium white oil paint on a few teeth. The major time suck was having to install and remove the torque tube over and over to see the pattern and make corrections. In the end, I think I got it set up about as well as I could have given the amount of wear on the gears and how hard it was to read the pattern. The Dyke's manual was pretty helpful here, as it was very clear in its "if you see this pattern, then do this" statements. Kinda wish I had done this separately on the garage floor before installing the rear end back in the car, but live and learn. 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike "Hubbie" Stearns Posted August 4 Share Posted August 4 Was the wood mounts originally plywood or solid? I don’t think the plywood will hold up over time. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Dort Posted August 4 Author Share Posted August 4 2 hours ago, Mike "Hubbie" Stearns said: Was the wood mounts originally plywood or solid? I don’t think the plywood will hold up over time. Mike Original blocks were unfinished solid wood. I thought about how the plywood would hold up, but I'm also planning on tearing this whole thing down to the frame and cleaning everything up in the next couple years, so I may replace them at that point if they look suspect. I've got a lot of other body woodwork to replace at that point. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Dort Posted August 6 Author Share Posted August 6 (edited) The modern U-joint I'm using ended up relocating the actual joint back about 1.5" from where it originally was, which means the new yoke was too long and the square end of the driveshaft was going to hit the joint. I knew this was a possibility when I first chose this new joint, but now I had to address it. I cut off about 1.5 inches of the drive shaft and about 2 inches from the new yoke to give it about the same clearance with the end of the torque tube as the original. Drilled and tapped a new hole for the zerk fitting on the yoke. Installed the cut-down yoke onto the u-joint, but couldn't get one of the inner retaining clips to fit in its groove. The groove wasn't completely exposed. Struggled with it for almost an hour before pulling it back apart and shaving down the inner surface of the yoke enough to expose the entirety of the groove. It all went together easily the second time. I had to unbolt the rear end from the springs to slide the torque tube + rear end assembly back far enough to feed the driveshaft into the u-joint yoke. Reinstalled the shifter lever and handbrake. Discovered that the shifter is going to end up being a knuckle-buster on the dash. It's way too tall. Here's a comparison with the one I pulled from the 1918 parts car: I know the dash wood isn't original in the '20, but the mounts on the body are, and they dictate the angle of the dash such that the bottom is closer to the driver than the top. The dash angle is more vertical in the '21, and the shifter arm is also shorter and curved more toward the rear in that car: So, three different shifter arms in three different years. I'm not sure how that tall shifter arm ever worked in the '20. I'll probably end up swapping over to the shorty. Also started disassembling the brake linkage. Edited August 6 by Nate Dort (see edit history) 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tate Posted August 6 Share Posted August 6 I always enjoy these updates. Nice work on the u joints and driveshaft 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Dort Posted August 10 Author Share Posted August 10 Spent a few days de-rusting and painting the brake linkage parts. Realized that I'm missing one of the 4 large return springs, so I'm going to have to see if Stan has one of those in his parts barn, or maybe cobble together something with an off-the-shelf spring of similar size. The '21 uses a much different, and likely less expensive, linkage system. Longer clevis rods and smaller springs localized at the rear axle. While I was digging around in my various bins of parts looking for some clevis pins, I found what looks like an unused Babbitt bearing for the driveshaft, the one I replaced with bronze. Oops! At the very least, I can use it as a pattern to have more new ones made. The '21 likely needs to have its replaced in the future. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom C Posted August 11 Share Posted August 11 This is a very interesting story and certainly different. Take your time. Trust me, it will all be worth it in the end ! Just plain cool ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Dort Posted August 12 Author Share Posted August 12 The picture above shows 4 returns springs on the brakes, but I found another drawing that shows 3 springs. This is the earlier setup where the parking brake was integrated with the main service brake. There wasn't a handbrake prior to 1919, I believe. Maybe I never had the 4th spring? I'll have to see how everything feels once I get all of the linkages adjusted (waiting on some more clevis pins to arrive from McMaster). It's kind of amazing to me how many slight changes were made to these things over such a short period of production. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Dort Posted August 13 Author Share Posted August 13 Spent a few hours working on the distributor. Connecticut Model 15. I had three to choose from in my parts stash. The middle was was rusted solid inside, with only a few usable parts remaining. The one on the right was in the best shape internally, but I wanted to test how the parts would react to the ultrasonic cleaner before I ruined my best one. I disassembled the leftmost one and it looked OK inside, but definitely needed cleaning. 30 minutes in the ultrasonic with knock-off simple green followed by 30 minutes in the ultrasonic with evaporust (both at 60 C temp) cleaned the parts up nicely. I spent a little more time with the dremel and a brass wire wheel to get everything shiny, then a bit of polish on the pot metal parts and some of the larger brass bits. Also cleaned up the best cap I had with some Novus II plastic polish. Found a NOS rotor on ebay. I wanted to replace the main bearing on the bottom, but its OD is just slightly smaller than any readily available modern sealed bearing I could find, so I just cleaned up the old one as best I could. It seems like it will be fine once I pack some grease in there. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Dort Posted August 17 Author Share Posted August 17 Got the carb cleaned up and looking purty. Started cleaning up the throttle and timing linkages. Got them derusted and painted, but when I went to mount them on the engine, one of the mounting brackets snapped due to the mating surface not being flat. This was at one of the bolt holes behind the timing cover where I stitched and helicoiled it. There was some leftover JB Weld on the surface which put too much strain on the bracket. I preheated, welded, and stuck it in a bucket of sand to cool slowly. I'll check on it tomorrow. This is another case where the '21 has a different linkage system which passes through the engine block between cylinders. It's a much simpler system, but this older linkage is the only part I have, so I have to make it work. I also had to drill and tap a hole in the block to mount the bracket which holds the ignition coil. For some reason, this block only had one of the two holes drilled. The three other blocks I have in the garage have both holes drilled. Again, another case where the '21 has changed. They went to a different mount which utilized existing holes in the timing cover and mounted the coil vertically. Probably because it made accessing the generator easier. I started cleaning up the mount that presumably was original to the '20. One of the ears had broken off and had been brazed back on at some point. I dug through the parts bin and found the one I had removed from the '18 parts chassis, and was pleasantly surprised to find out, once I hit it with the wire wheel, that it was bronze instead of cast iron and fully intact, so I obviously installed that one. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Dort Posted August 25 Author Share Posted August 25 (edited) Linkage system installed and working. Ended up welding the broken bracket. I did eventually find another linkage in the parts pile, but the other mounting bracket was broken on it. Spent a couple days cleaning up the Stewart Warner fuel vacuum tank. Model 122-D stamped on top. Really old fuel inside (20+ years?) had turned to varnish. Most of the plating on the float had deteriorated. I stripped it down and soaked it in one of those gallon cans of Berryman's carb cleaner that I've had forever. It loosened up the paint enough where I could scrape it off in sheets with a putty knife. Took a few hours until the flapper valve on the upper tank got unstuck. Then I cleaned it up and painted it with a rattle can of blue-gray I had on the shelf leftover from my son's pinewood derby car. Made a new plug wire raceway out of 1-1/4" copper tubing and some rubber grommets at the exit holes. The original would have been carboard, and was long gone. I had a homemade one in the parts pile somebody had cut out of PVC, which had partially melted, so I tossed it. Got some new 7mm copper-core plug wire and made my own terminations. New Champion W18 plugs. Plumbed the fuel and vacuum lines with new 1/4" copper tubing and compression fittings. Installed a new ignition coil, which just happened to match the color of the vacuum tank I had just painted. Nice coincidence. Installed a new set of throttle return springs. Took the Delco Remy 939-H generator from the '21 and put it on this engine. Not original, but it had the same mounting form-factor, rotation direction, and shaft size as the original Westinghouse unit, so it was trivial to get it mated up. Somebody had rebuilt it in the past. One issue I ran into was that I didn't have any of the threaded bakelite caps that go on the distributor terminals. Actually, I had 3 originals, but they were stripped and unusable. I thought maybe the Delco Twist 'n Lock distributor terminals might work, but I couldn't find any. So, I drew up some new ones in Fusion 360 and printed them on one of the 3D printers at work. Tapped them to 3/8-24 and they tightened right down on the terminals. Edited August 25 by Nate Dort (see edit history) 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
r1lark Posted August 25 Share Posted August 25 Beautiful work Nate! Are the spark plug wire caps threaded on the inside, so they lock the wire down into the cap? (Sorry, I'm still learning about these really early cars!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Dort Posted August 25 Author Share Posted August 25 6 hours ago, r1lark said: Beautiful work Nate! Are the spark plug wire caps threaded on the inside, so they lock the wire down into the cap? (Sorry, I'm still learning about these really early cars!) Yes, they're tapped to 3/8" 24 TPI. Not sure if this is correct, but I spread the wire out around the threads on the distributor post, then tightened the new plastic cap over the wire strands so they were sort of pinched into the threads. I figured it probably distorted the threads of the plastic caps a bit, but I can always print new ones if they get stripped out. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Dort Posted Thursday at 02:11 AM Author Share Posted Thursday at 02:11 AM (edited) Took a break from the car over labor day weekend to build a new mantel for our fireplace. After that, though, it was back to the grind. I wanted a leather fan belt, and actually sourced a couple companies who would make them for me at reasonable prices, but I thought I'd try my hand at making one myself first. Got a 1" wide strip of tanned leather on ebay, cut it to length, skived the ends, glued with contact cement, and then stitched the joint. Conditioned it with neatsfoot oil before installing. Found an old Schwarze horn (possibly a model 10C?) on ebay and brought it back to life. These were made in Adrian, MI. I also have a Trojan-branded horn in the '21 that was made in Adrian. Were there multiple horn manufacturers in the small town of Adrian, or where they made in the same factory and just branded differently? Will we ever know? Does it really matter? It was advertised as working, but needed some help, so I stripped it down, cleaned, derusted, and painted everything, cleaned and lubed the motor, and replaced all of the hardware. Made a mounting bracket out of a scrap of angle steel I had in the corner. Bench tested it with a 12V power supply. Works great now. Hung a new muffler from the old mounting brackets using some rubber hangers I welded on. Still need to figure out the connection from the header. I'll probably rig up some temporary flex pipe until I can get this thing to the exhaust shop. Derusted the inside of the radiator with citric acid to get the major crusties out. I was originally going to take it to the radiator shop in Ferndale, but I think I'm going to try running it as-is to see how it does before I commit to that. Didn't see any leaks when I had it filled and laying on the garage floor for a few days. Will likely run some evaporust through the water jacket for a while to see how that goes. I did throw a pantyhose filter in the upper hose as a crud catcher. Also got the headlights cleaned up internally. Polished the mirrors as best I could, but they'll eventually need to be stripped and resilvered due to rust. The old Liberty Glass lenses cleaned up pretty well though. Installed new LED bulbs. Pieced together a working Dort-branded Boyce motometer and dogbone cap: I started tackling the wiring, which has been consuming most of my time over the past two weeks. There were no wires left in this car when I got it. Opted for vintage-looking cloth-covered wire from Brillman, at least for the stuff that was easily visible. I found conflicting wiring diagrams. The one in the Dyke's manual says the car was 6 V negative-ground. I have another from the Standard Auto Electrician's manual that shows 6 V positive ground on 1917 and 1918 models, which is how my '21 is wired. Either way, I'm starting from scratch, so it's going to be 12 V negative-ground from now on. First order of business was the headlights. I didn't have the original bakelite bayonet connectors, so I got some 1156 bulb ends and 3D printed some right-angle caps that slide into them. Added modern fuse blocks under the dash, somewhat hidden from view. Cut out some floor panels from plywood and painted them with some heavy duty deck paint I had from another project. Added a vintage ammeter and some modern horn and light switches, at least temporarily until I can get something that looks more period-correct. The horn switch in the steering column is shot and I haven't yet figured out how to disassemble it without breaking. It still moves when I push it, but either the wiring is broken or the contacts are corroded, as I don't get any continuity when it's pressed. I converted most of the grease fittings on the car to zerks and lubed all the chassis points. Added 600W oil to the gearbox and lubed the throwout and clutch shaft before I buttoned it up and installed the floor. To-do list for the next month: Move the American Bosch starter from the '21 to the '20, as I'm still waiting on the rebuild of the '20's original Westinghouse starter. Install the battery and wire the solenoid and starter. Install and wire the tail light I just finished cleaning up. I'm going to try a magnetic reed relay mounted at the brake pedal to control the light. Order and mount tires to the set of nicer, non-broken wheels I have. Plumb the exhaust Install new cowl lacing Fill the radiator Fill the engine with oil Fill the rear axle with 600W Set the timing Dial in the carburetor Maybe install an oil pressure gauge. This year didn't have one standard, but they added them in '21. The plumbing is mostly there already, just need to run it up to the dash. My goal is to get this thing moving under its own power by the end of October, in time for the Trunk-or-Treat event at my kids' school, which is only about 500 yards down the street. Seems doable. Edited Thursday at 02:16 AM by Nate Dort (see edit history) 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
r1lark Posted Thursday at 10:59 AM Share Posted Thursday at 10:59 AM Wow Nate, lots of great work done! Can't wait to see the Dort back on the road (maybe you can "treat" us with a video on October 31 🙂 ). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Dort Posted Friday at 12:59 AM Author Share Posted Friday at 12:59 AM 22 hours ago, Nate Dort said: I was originally going to take it to the radiator shop in Ferndale, but I think I'm going to try running it as-is to see how it does before I commit to that. Didn't see any leaks when I had it filled and laying on the garage floor for a few days. Welp, spoke too soon. Filled it with water today and found at least 3 pinhole leaks near the top. I'm guessing I dislodged some crud when I did the final rinse to get the citric acid out. I'm going to let it leak out on its own and see how far down the water level drops. I suspect it will probably be good enough to get me down the street and back for my halloween event, then I can let the radiator shop tackle it during the winter. In the meantime, I filled the rear end with 600W and installed the battery. I added a lockdown tray to the original hanging straps, but I had to rotate everything 90 degrees to get it to fit. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
human-potato_hybrid Posted Friday at 01:11 PM Share Posted Friday at 01:11 PM What is 600W ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nate Dort Posted Friday at 01:51 PM Author Share Posted Friday at 01:51 PM 32 minutes ago, human-potato_hybrid said: What is 600W ? Supposedly the modern equivalent of "steam engine oil," as called out in the owners manual. Super thick, pours like cold honey, and is about as sticky. I've actually been using this GL1500 stuff: https://www.mikes-afordable.com/product/GL1500.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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