Road Speed

[Guest Dave Wyatt]

My 80 year old father-in-law insists on running the guts out of his A. He has a nice driver/parade car that will comfortably cruise all day at 50 mph. Unfortunately for the car, he insists on trying to run it 55 and higher. He now has the idea that it should be able to run 60 - 70 with ease because, "so and so told me they used to run theirs at 70." I told him that even if they did run one that hard, that was the reason everyone had to work on them all the time. That they were not made to run that fast and 50 was plenty fast, even for one with good brakes. I likend it to running his Lincoln flat out all the time, but it did not seem to phase him. My father-in-law made the jump from junkyard T's to almost junkyard mid 30's Fords in his youth and had never owned an A until now, so he had no previous experience with them.

After his fist year of owning the car, he has had to drop the pan and re-shim the rods and mains. He kept pushing the car and using too much spark advance, only to end up with a knock that he did not hear due to being hard of hearing. We have now made it past another season and after a short ride with him, my son reports that the bearings are hammering again. I am going to go over and check it out this week while he is gone on vacation to see for myself. The bad part is, I was taking various family members for rides in the car during his 80th birthday celebration a few weeks ago and the car was running like a top with no noise and zero problems. He drove it home that day and ran it hard, finally getting it up to 60 where it was blowing smoke out the oil breather and ended up losing a bunch of coolant on the way. I had ran the car continuously all afternoon in 90+ temps and it never overheated once. It is obvious to me that he is asking the old girl to do far more than anyone ever should and he is harming the car.

Can someone help me out with some real facts about these cars, so I get him under control? I hate to say it, but I wish he had never bought that car, as I have too much love for old cars to see them treated this way. <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

[Guest 31tudor]

Yikes! Dave, I hate to tell you but I don't think any hard facts would change his mind. It seems from your post he's made up his mind already, and is convinced it should run that hard/fast.

I've never been over 50 in an A, and each time that was about all they had. Of course there was a <span style="font-style: italic">little</span> more, but why run the [censored] out of an old classic that's in great shape? Doesn't make much sense to me, but then again, I'm not 80.

Good luck. Hopefully you can get this straightened out before any serious or permanent damage is done.

If he wants to go fast, put a Winfield head on it, a downdraft carb, and some other bolt-on performance goodies. You can get an easy 65HP out of a solid motor with some simple changes, and you can still put the motor back to stock in a few hours.

[DizzyDale]

Dear Dave,It is only a matter of time,you drove it,you know how it STOPS.diz <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

[Guest Dave Wyatt]

Well the good news is, the rods are not trying to come out at this moment. Took it for a short drive yesterday and everything seemed OK. There is a little engine noise, but not bad enough to warrant dropping the pan. The car never smoked a bit, but I did not go very far over 50 mph either.

Bad news, he has bumped something with the left rear and the bumper has taken some paint off of the fender and the bumper is slightly sprung. Not bad, but you can see it if you start looking. It needed a repaint anyway, so I guess there is no real harm done. He may or may not even know he did it!

Thanks for all of your input regarding speed. I now have something to back up my original thoughts.

[ThomasBorchers]

Hi Dave,

a stock Model A should run max ca. 62 mph. It should be possible to make it faster with an overdrive, Brumfield head and so on.

But : There is a risk to drive it faster as it actually was. Your father should think about the brakes, suspension and so on. And : The engine is not good for a long time maximum speed driving. It has just 3 main bearings.

We drive our Model As not faster that max 50 mph. Our Roadster runs near 60 mph but we don't like this driving speed. Around 45 is nice.

Kind regards

Tom

[Guest Hal Davis (MODEL A HAL)]

I have to agree with Thomas. It is my understanding that Ford advertised the A to go 60 mph. I have heard from several folks that theirs wouldn't do it. When I got mine roadworthy, I have to admit I did it once just to see if it would. I didn't like the sound of the engine and I didn't like how light it felt on the road. To put it bluntly, doing 60 in an A is just plain dogging one out. There's no need in it. I like the feel and sound of mine at 45. I occassionally get it up to 50, but usually by accident or going down hills (Not that we have many of those around here).