Assembling the engine

 One of the aspects of restoring a Model T that I appreciate is the range of skills that the project requires the restorer to use.  Sheet metal repair, painting, upholstery and top installation definitely tap into the artistic/right side of your brain.  You can easily see how good, or how poorly, you did once the task is finished.

Assembling the engine is more of a left side of your brain activity.  The engine builder needs to stay organized, follow good mechanical practice, as well as the repair manual to be rewarded with a properly running engine.  Unlike admiring a well done paint job or upholstery installation, you cannot look at an engine and see if it was put together correctly or not!  However you will know once you start running the engine.  Fortunately, the T engine is pretty simple, and as long as you follow the instructions on putting it together, you should end up with a good running engine that will hopefully outlast you.

There are a few good, no must have, sources of information that will help the would be T engine rebuilder complete the job.

1. Ford Service Manual - published in 1925, it walks the mechanic through how to do pretty much anything on a Model T.  Every Model T owner SHOULD already have reprint of this book.  If not, reprints are readily available.  I've got a reprint that I use when I'm working on my T's and it has enough of my grease fingerprints that it could easily be identified by the police as mine!  I also have an original hardback version that I picked up at Chickasha years ago as my indoor "reading" copy.  The originals tend to have much crisper pictures.  What amazes me is that by 1925, Ford had already made 10 million Model Ts and it was only THEN that they decided it would be a good idea to publish a service manual?
2. "The Engine" Manual published by Model T Ford Club of America.  Available from MTFCA or any of the Model T parts supplier, it is a good supplement to the Ford manual
3. "Rebuilding the Ford Power Plant" by Vic Zannis.  It is also available from the parts suppliers.  
4. A complete set of well done videos on the steps for completely rebuilding a Model T engine.  Mike Bender and Bill How have done the T community an invaluable service by making these videos.  They are extremely helpful whether you are doing a complete rebuild or just needing to do certain aspects of engine work, they are worth your time watching!
1.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp5pY7dEuy8&list=PLYG_lIhIwKyLG8WQm4tGmKK1nA0Yctp6G

I am firm believer of the "plan ahead, buy ahead" approach when it comes to restoring a T.  When it was time to reassemble the engine, I had, or at least thought I had, everything on hand to do the job.  Inevitably there were a few additional items that I needed as it went together, but no long lead time or "out of stock" items that would have set me back for who knows how long.  

Someone once said "a picture is worth a thousand words".  Finding that it is easier to upload pictures than write a lot of words.  So with that said, here are some pictures that I took during the process, along with some words for context.

Fitting the crankshaft

In an earlier blog post I described the marathon day at Mike Bender's shop pouring crankshaft babbitt along with line boring the journals.  That got things pretty close, but the job needs to be finished to get about a 0.002" gap between the crankshaft and the babbitt surfaces.  Why 0.002"?  That gap allows a film of oil between the surfaces providing lubrication.  

It used to be a tedious process to get this gap using a scraper.  Now we have a wonderful product called "Timesaver", a powder that is mixed with some oil and brushed between the mating surfaces.  The caps are torqued down and the crankshaft is moved back and forth with the wood "club" bolted to the flange as you slowly rotate the crankshaft.  The Timesaver removes the high spots and quits cutting once a 0.002" gap is formed.  Really cool!  It does take multiple applications and to get the desired clearance.  While Timesaver is just that, it still takes a while to do this process.  After the crankshaft was done, the process was repeated for each of the connecting rods.

Grinding the valves to length

KD Manufacturing Model T Valve Installation Tool

Installing the Valves with the KD Tool

With the crankshaft and connecting rods fitted, it was time to install the camshaft.  The original camshaft lobes were worn more than I wanted, so I was fortunate to find a new one, along with new camshaft bearings, on eBay.  It was an aftermarket reproduction camshaft with more "lift" than a stock version, so maybe I will see a little more oomph.  We will see.  Anyway, MORE fitting with Timesaver was needed to get the camshaft fitted in the new bearings.  

It was time to fit and lap the valves.  The valve seats were in pretty bad shape, so I had the machine shop put in new valve seats.  The Model T originally had two piece valves, which people have unhappily found out can have the head pop off at the most inopportune time.  Know one who is ever deep into a Model T engine should put original valves back in!

The new replacement valves are one piece.  Yay!  The bad news is that they are too long and need to be cut down to length.  I installed adjustable valve lifters to allow fine tuning of the valve clearance when fitting new valves.  Otherwise the rebuilder needs to carefully grind the valve ends down to within a couple of thousandths of the desired gap.  Grind too much and oops, it is time to buy another valve.  I don't know if the adjustable valve lifters are longer than the nonadjustable lifters, but but using adjustable lifters will require the rebuilder to cut off the valves to the desired length.  I did this by calculating what my length needed to be (with some margin for using the adjustable lifters) and used an angle grinder fitted with a cutoff wheel to cut to the desired length.  I then used a belt sander as shown in the picture to square up the valve stem.  The process worked well for me, and it was not too much work to get each valve adjusted to the desired gap between the valve is seated.

People more knowledgeable than me have said that the Model T had "weak" valve springs.  Well they seem pretty strong when you need to install them!  There are various tools available, both new and aftermarket tools that can be found on eBay.  The one that I got was K.D. Manufacturing back in the heyday of the Model T.  I posted a copy of an ad for the tool, as well as when I was using it.  What a great tool to make installing valves easy.  At this stage the engine "short block" is finished. 

Recharging the Magnets

Setting the Magnet Height

Various Shims Needed to Get the Desired Gap

Checking the Magnet Gap Clearance

There was one last tedious job left in assembling the engine; setting the magnet gap clearance.  The Model T had a novel ignition system.  While some other early engines used batteries to provide the electrical juice to energize the spark plugs, the T used a magneto that generated alternating current by a series of 16 V shaped magnets attached to the flywheel that passed close by 16 metal pucks wrapped with thin metal tape.  The resulting alternating, low voltage, current was then went to the coils where they were converted into high voltage direct current that energized the spark plugs at the correct time.  The ignition system was designed by "Spider" Huff, a very interesting gentleman who worked for Ford early on.  I seem to recall that he got name by his ability to hang on to one of Ford's early race cars acting as the onboard mechanic during a race...

The first step in reassembling the ignition system is making sure that the wound pucks still had continuity.  There are rebuilders of those if one needs service.  Mine checked out ok.  The next step is checking and recharging the V magnets.  The magnets can loose their strength over 100+ years for various reasons.  When you are this deep into an engine, you make sure that the magnets have a good charge!  Fortunately one of the members of my Model T club had a magnet charger to do the job.  A fully charged magnet should hold a couple of pounds, or the weight a cast iron T piston.  Well, I had four of those that I removed from the engine, so I charged the magnets using a 12V car battery. 

After recharging the magnets, the flywheel was reassembled with new brass screws and it was time to get the magnets leveled.  The goal is to get all 16 magnets at the same height.  Getting them close is easy; getting them really close is not!  This is where the tool shown in the picture comes in handy.  By setting the gage to the lowest magnet, the arm gets swung around to the other magnets and every time you hear a "click" that means that this particular magnet is higher than the lowest one.  By (many) successive tapping with a plastic mallet, you can get the magnets down to a level where the swing arm just grazes each magnet as it is swung around.  Pretty slick!  Once done the screws tightened one last time, the height rechecked and then the ends of the screws are peened to keep them from backing out.

The last step is temporarily installing the flywheel assembly on the engine, turning it sideways and measuring the gap between the flywheel magnet attach plates and the stationary pucks.  My recollection (without bothering to look it up) is that the gap should be between 0.025" to 0.040" measured at various spots.  Getting the magnets leveled as described earlier help reduce the variability.  The recommended videos describe how to do this (and setting the magnet heights) in detail and will not be repeated here.  Even following the procedure, it took numerous combinations to different shims to the measurements to a value that I was happy with.  The flywheel assembly weighs over 50 lb, so you will get quite a workout!  

Taking the time to charge the magnets and get the clearance gaps within the specified range will pay big dividends once the engine is done and installed in the car.  Having a Model T that will easily start on the magneto and also runs well on the magneto is a joy to behold.

We are now on the home stretch with finishing the engine assembly.  The engine is getting heavier and heavier with each part added, so be careful when rotating the engine to different positions!   The engine drum assembly was put back together and installed at this time.

Using Tool to Align Timing Gear Cover

Transmission Band Clamp by Star Manufacturing

Finished, or am I?

I was now on the home stretch for assembling the engine.  There are a couple of important steps that the assembler needs to keep in mind at this stage.  First, is getting the timing gear cover properly aligned.  I imagine that many a T engine was reassembled with the mechanic just slapping on the cover and tightening the bolts.  The problem is that the slop in the cover holes can result in the cover being slightly misaligned with the timing gear.  What does that matter?  Well the cover is also where the timer goes and rotates as the driver adjusts the spark advance.  If the cover is not concentric with the camshaft, then the little arm that spins on the camshaft will wobble inside the timer causing problems.  There are tools available that fit onto the camshaft that will keep the cover concentric while bolting it down.  That tool can be seen in the first picture above this paragraph.  This tool was made by Gene French, and I believe that another similar type can be purchased from the T parts suppliers.

The second important step is getting the massive oil pan properly installed so that the "fourth main" ballcap that bolts in the back of the oil pan and the "hogshead" pedal cover is properly aligned.  The recommended videos show how to properly install the pan, but the pan also needs to be straightened if needed.  The pan for this engine was straightened by Mike Bender during our marathon day when he rebabbitted the engine block.

The engine transmission has three pedal activated bands that grab onto the spinning transmission drums when they are depressed.  How a Model T planetary transmission works is a bit mysterious to most Model T owners.  I think that the best description about it comes from the 1936 tribute about the Model T written by E.B. White, who later wrote "Charlotte's Web".  His description about the transmission is shown below, with a link to the complete essay at the New Yorker magazine website:

"The Model T was distinguished from all other makes of cars by the fact that its transmission was of a type known as planetary—which was half metaphysics, half sheer friction. Engineers accepted the word “planetary” in its epicyclic sense, but I was always conscious that it also meant “wandering,” “erratic.” Because of the peculiar nature of this planetary element, there was always, in Model T, a certain dull rapport between engine and wheels, and even when the car was in a state known as neutral, it trembled with a deep imperative and tended to inch forward. There was never a moment when the bands were not faintly egging the machine on. In this respect it was like a horse, rolling the bit on its tongue, and country people brought to it the same technique they used with draft animals."

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1936/05/16/farewell-my-lovely

As a Model T driver, I realize how timeless the article is every time that I reread it.

The transmission bands that I use are made of Kevlar, instead of the original cotton.  Properly used, the Kevlar bands should last as long as a person owns a Model T, and NO ONE wants to install Model T transmission bands more than once.  Once again, the aftermarket during the Model T era produced a useful tool to make the installation a bit easier.  It is harder to find than the valve spring tool that I mentioned, but, wow, does it work.  The clamp was made by Star Manufacturing and as the second picture above shows, it compresses all three springs installed on the pedal shafts before the cover is maneuvered into place on the engine.  Just doing that is a feat in itself, and should be practiced a few times before doing it for real.  Why practice? Because doing it for real requires coating the cork gaskets with very sticky, messy sealant because the cork gasket in itself will only stop "most" of the leaks.  My favorite sealant is Permatex Ultra Black.   

After installing the hogshead and valve chamber covers, the engine was done except for installing the head gasket.  The head gaskets are a sandwich of copper with some kind of fibrous material that crushes and along with the copper faces, forms a tight seal for both the coolant and combustion chamber.  There is a recommended sequence for tightening and torquing all the head bolts that should be followed.  With the head installed, the engine was finished, or was it?  More on that when I post about the first engine run.

Installing the upholstery and top

 

With the painting complete, it was time to install the new upholstery and top.  They are pretty much the go to company for Model T and Model A interiors now.  Fortunately they make very good kits.  They come with rather sparse instructions, so it pays to look for online videos and read what you can find on the Model T forum for installation tips.  Both the kits come with factory authentic crude looking nails to use for the installation, but I prefer using a pneumatic stapler.  I suspect that “Henry” would have used such a stapler if they’d existed during the Model T production, and they make the installation work go much easier.  All the staples are hidden if you do the installation correctly, so no one has to know! 

The earliest picture of the car from 1923 shows that the original top had been replaced at some point prior to that.  That top differed from the factory version by having a glass oval window with a brass frame for the rear window.  I had Classtique leave the rear plastic window out of the top kit that they made for the car so that I could reinstall that window.  It is the one unique feature that ties the all the pictures of the car through the years together. That replacement top also did not have the ability to roll up the rear top for increased ventilation like the original factory version.  The top kit from Classtique did have this feature, so I had to install the oval window into this flap.  The oval window is smaller than the original factory plastic window, so I am glad that I would have the option of rolling up this flap for improved visibility. 

The upholstery needs to be installed before the installing the top though.  Recovering the seat cushions is the first step.  The picture below show the seat springs.  They looked like something from a century old mattress.  Some of the spring coils needed to be reconnected to the braces shown in the picture.  Installing the new covers requires compressing the whole cushion while attaching the new seat cover to the wire frame.  There is a very good Classtique video on their website showing how to do this with two 2x4 clamps.  Once compressed, the cushion is attached to the bottom wire edge using what are called "hog rings", which sort of look like nose piercings you may have noticed some people like to wear.  They are crimped using a special tool, which I now have in my toolbox for any future Model T upholstery work or to crimp on any body piercings someone wants me to do for free.

Though introduced in the fall of 1908, the Model T did not come equipped with seat back springs until the 1915 Model year.  Since this car is from 1911, that meant that any lumbar support was going to come from the seat back upholstery.  The third picture shows what the seat back looked like before the back upholstery was installed, with the fourth picture showing the seat back that is heavily stuffed with a cotton like substance.

Installing the seatback is the most difficult part of the upholstery installation.  You need to center the back and start attaching it from the center and chase it around to the end on the left and right side.  Installing the top edge requires even more care, as the stuffing needs to be worked to fill out the sleeves between the seams and the edges darted to go around the corners.  As I mentioned earlier, a pneumatic staple gun was used instead of the provided primitive nails.  I cannot imagine how much hard it would be to install using those.  The forward end of each armrest needs to be carefully folded, sort of like wrapping a present.  Later Model years had end caps which would make that easier.  I had taken a lot of pictures of the original upholstery before removing it so that I saw how the Baudette factory workers installed it in 1911.  Baudette was the maker of this car's body, and was one of several former carriage companies that made bodies for the Model T.  The last step is installing the trim strip, using black thumbtack looking nails.  You can see what the trim strip and tacks look like in the picture showing the rear door interior panel installation.  Overall I was very happy with how the upholstery installation turned out, and as it turned out, the seats are pretty comfortable without seatback springs.  

Installing the top brings another opportunity to learn long lost skills!  My first top installation was on the two seat 1915 Model T that I installed, which was a lot easier because it had only one top bow.  Before starting the top installation, I temporarily mounted the body to the chassis frame because the front straps for the top attached to the headlamp forks when the top is up.  A secondary benefit of doing it this way is that the body is lower to the ground, so that much of the work could be done while standing on the ground.  This was not the case when I installed a new top on our 1921 Model T a few years ago.  The body was installed on the car and required using a step ladder to reach the upper areas of the work.

The top bows needed to be wrapped first, which is very difficult because the vinyl type fabric provided does not easily stretch around compound curves.  I found that it worked best to start by using spray adhesive to attach the material to the bottom side of the bow and work it around the square wood steam bent bows.  Eventually the material needs to have darts cut along the edges to allow them to wrap around to the upper side.  These darts are done so that they are on the top portion, and remain hidden after the material is stapled on the top.

The touring cars have two top bows, which need to be kept parallel while installing the top.  I used a series of lath strips temporarily  hold them in place, along with ratcheting straps.  A bubble level and just inspecting visually will help get these located correctly.  Once located, the forward to aft straps were located and stapled on the top of the bows, and the corner pads located, stapled to the corner of the bows,  padding installed and the upper side sewed together.  

Finally it was time to locate, trim and stable down the top.  A lot of time was spent getting this located correctly. Although the corner pads are attached to the two middle bows, the top is not.  Otherwise the top will tend to tear out the nail or thumbtack used to attach the top to those bows when the top is being put down.  

The rear piece of the top is also installed at this time, including installing that pre 1923 brass framed oval glass window.  Brass quarter turn fastener are used to secure the rear piece when down, as well as to attach the lower edge of the top to the car.  Prior to 1915, the Model T tops could be completely removed if the owner so desired.  The tops were permanently attached along the rear bottom edge after that.

The body was now done and it was time to assemble the engine, rear axle.  After that, assemble the car and get it on the road!

The seat cushion springs...

Comparison of the original seat cushion and new cushion

Rear seat before back installation.  There are no cushion springs for the back.

Seat back upholstery before installing

Rear seat back finished and front seat back installation underway

Upholstery installation finished!

Rear door upholstery panel

Getting the top bows located prior to adding the corner pads and center straps

Center straps installed

Corner pads installed

Fitting the top 

Pre 1923 replacement top oval window installed

Top installation finished

Painting the car

 Looking at the blog dates, I noticed it has been one year and one day since my last entry.  No excuse other than being busy with other stuff and that it is more enjoyable working on old cars than WRITING about them!

Anyway, after I got my "paint booth" made, it was time to prime and paint the car.  Like when I painted our 1915 runabout, I was at this stage of restoration during the hottest part of the year.  Too cold or too hot can cause issues when it comes to painting.  

I primed the body parts using a two part direct to metal urethane primer.  Even with the reducer, it is still pretty thick; almost like spray "Bondo".  It wet sands nicely and provides a good foundation for the paint.

I used a single stage, two part urethane paint when I painted our runabout, and did the same for this car.  With a urethane paint job, you can do a single stage paint or base color coat with clear coat paint.  I prefer the single stage paint for painting Model Ts because I don't want to blow through the clear coat during the final sanding/buffing stage. 

One of the main advantages of using a urethane paint is that you can use progressively finer grades of wet sandpaper, followed by two stages of buffing compound that will result in a mirror smooth paint job when done.  I covered the process in more detail on a posting on the Model T Ford Club of America forum site after I painted our runabout, and those interested can read about that process here:

https://www.mtfca.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6764&p=51027#p51027

After about 40 hours of priming, painting, wet sanding and buffing, the job was done.  I was happy with how it turned out.  This would have been a very expensive paint job if I had it professionally done.  Here are a few pictures of the progress, along with the finished body with the firewall installed.  I used the original firewall, which was broken in multiple pieces, as a template to locate the Ford patent plate and the brass California Vehicle Registration tag where it was originally screwed on well over 100 years ago.

Priming the body

Primed various parts

Finished front fenders

Finished body with firewall installed

Firewall and coil box temporarily installed

California Vehicle Registration tag installed in same location as on original firewall

Poor man's paint booth

 I mentioned in my previous entry that I used a three sided tent paint booth for painting all the chassis bits and pieces.  I used that tent for painting fenders and splash boards on the 1915 runabout, but it was a bit cramped for that.  I decided that this time I would need to come up with a better plan.

What I came up with was making a paint booth using heavy plastic drop cloth from Lowes, with the framing being supplied by the 3rd bay garage door and its rails.  The pictures below show the resulting booth.  I also used a couple of heavier drop cloths from Harbor Freight for to cover the floor.  I used spring clamps to hold the pieces together, which can be seen in the first picture.

Overall, it worked very well.  HPLV  guns, by the nature of their design, are LOW pressure.  That helps keep the overspray down.  However, I still got some overspray on the floor in spots.  I figure that just adds character to the garage.  

I also put plastic drop cloth over our 1915 runabout, which was in the garage when I painted.  No overspray got on it, which I was certainly glad about.

Painting the bits and pieces

 Doing a complete restoration of a Model T requires paint A LOT of bits and pieces.  Fortunately, in most cases this means painting a lot of pieces black.  Like the first T that I restored, I used Eastwood's gloss Extreme Chassis primer and glass black paint.  It requires no mixing, sprays well and looks nice when done.

I used a three sided tent as my spray booth.  I first got it when I restored our 1915 runabout, and it works well for smaller parts.  The picture below show the booth in the 3rd bay of our garage, along with some of the parts after painting.  My least favorite chassis parts to paint are the wheels.  

The second picture shows some of the many parts drying on a temporary "clothes line" that I installed under our deck.  I used a smaller HPLV gun to paint all the chassis parts, and it was good practice for painting the fenders and body, which was next on the to do list.  

Some of the many chassis parts painted

Parts drying under our deck

xxxx

Prepping the body for paint

 As I mentioned in a previous post, this Model T spent the first 110 years of its existence in Southern California.  That made the restoration of the body much easier.  A prior post mentioned that I had to repair some rusted areas on the fender flanges where they attach underneath the running boards.  Thankfully, that was the only sheet metal restorative work that I needed to do.

The car's documentation indicated that it had been painted by the 2nd owner in 1949 when he completed a cosmetic restoration of the car.  It is possible that the car had been painted once before, as the pictures of the original owner with the car from 1923 do not appear to have any pinstriping on the body, which apparently was standard when the car was made.  Either way, the car body needed to be taken down to bare metal for paint prepping.

The wood framework for the body was in excellent shape.  The only repair work needed for it were on the wooden door sills.  Although they had thin, brass step plates installed, they really were not a great place to step.  The edges were worn and a bit damaged due to people stepping on them over the years.  They were repaired and strengthened with a layer of fiberglass, followed by some body putty to fill the weave.  The following pictures show the body after the paint had been removed.

Body after paint was removed and door sills repaired

There were a few dents in the thin sheet metal that were removed as much as possible, followed by some body putty.  That can be seen in the second picture.  Removing paint is not the most enjoyable job, and any tools to help with the mechanical stripping makes the job go quicker. Two tools that worked for me were the Harbor Freight angle grinder with a wire brush attachment and an orbital sander shown below.  The grinder was particularly helpful, as it was also used to strip the paint off the chassis parts that I did not have blasted.  

Tools that made paint stripping go much easier!

Ford used several companies to make the bodies for the Model T until the early 1920s.  One of the companies was Baudette, who made the body for this car.  Like the other body makers, they originally made horse drawn carriages.  Baudette made over 2 million bodies for the Model T from 1910 through 1922, and each had a serial number on it.  Initially they stamped the number on the wood seat frame, as shown below.  Later they attached a stamped metal plate on the wood frame.  These tended to come off over time, as is the case with our 1915 Model T runabout.  The only way that I know that the body was a Baudette for that car is that it has a "B" stamped on the sheet metal piece below the seat frame.

Baudette Body Serial Number

While the body frame woodwork was very solid, there were two wooden components that I needed to replace.  The first were the removable front floor boards.  The originals were just falling apart after years of use.  The second area was the floor of the storage area under the rear seat.  This is where the previous owner had the battery located that was used to energize the engine coils to make hand starting easier.  Unfortunately, the battery had leaked some acid and rotted some of the boards.  The front floorboards are made and sold by Snyders, and really well made.  The baggage floor was made by me using Poplar wood.  Both are shown below.

New Front Floorboards

New Baggage Floorboard

A long day at Mike Bender's shop

 In a previous blog entry I mentioned that the engine block needed some repairs that required brazing.  Properly doing that required the block to be preheated in an oven, which unfortunately melted the crankshaft bearings in the block.  

Normally we think of bearings being made up of a series of steel balls or cylinders that allow a shaft to rotate freely.  However, the Model T crankshaft, and many cars during the first few decades of automobiles, did not use a traditional bearing.  Instead the bearing was a metal called Babbitt, made up of an alloy of mostly tin, copper and antimony.  This material lined the surface of the block and bearing caps that come in contact with the three crankshaft journals of the Model T engine.  

Putting new Babbitt bearings into a Model T block requires molds and the ability to carefully line bore the resulting bearings to ensure that the three bearings are in a straight line, and have a clearance of 0.002" with the crankshaft.  0.002" is a really small clearance; 1/500 of an inch!

There are only a few places in the U.S. that have the equipment and experience to do the job.  Mike Bender in Tulsa, OK is one of those experts.  Mike rebuilt the engine for our 1915 Model T runabout in 2019, and offered to repour and drill the bearings for the engine block for our 1911 car.  

So in June of 2022, I made the three hour drive to Mike's shop to "help" Mike do the Babbitt work on the engine block.  It was an enjoyable, but long day as Mike poured the new oversized crankshaft journals and then carefully line bored the journals for the desired clearance.  The bearing journals were fine tuned by using a material called "Timesaver", which is an abrasive paste that is applied between the crankshaft and journals that finely cuts the Babbitt until there is a clearance of 0.002".  Pretty cool stuff, and much quicker than the original method of scraping the bearings with a special knife to remove small amounts of material.

We finished up around dinner time, and drove home after a long but productive day.  The block was now ready to go to a machine shop to have the cylinders bored for some oversized pistons and to have the valve seats reworked.

Mike pouring the #1 crankshaft bearing

Line boring the new Babbitt journals to the proper diameter

Frame finishing

 The early cars, like the Model T, used a frame that supported the axles, engine and body.  Eventually car designs adopted a uni-body construction.  As I did with our 1915 Runabout restoration, I decided to have the frame powder coated instead of painting it.  The main reason was to have a much more durable coating than paint.  For the same reason, I had the running boards powder coated because they are stepped on every time someone gets in or out of the car.

I took the frame and the running boards to the same company in Wichita, LORAC, that I used when I restored our Runabout.  I've been told that the strange name is just "Carol" spelled backwards, and is apparently named for the owner.  I brought parts to them last May and after about a week or so, I was able to pick them up.  What was a grimy frame now looked sparkling new!

Working on the body

Restoring a car that spent 110 years in southern California is wonderful.  No rust and no wood rot.  Many people may not know that the Model T bodies were all wood for the first couple years of production, and continued to use for the body frame throughout its production.  1911 was the first year that the bodies had steel skins that were nailed onto the wood frame.  These bodies were not initially made by Ford, but by former carriage companies that he subcontracted the work to.  This particular body was made by Baudette, which also made the body for our 1915 runabout.  Eventually Baudette was purchased by Fisher body, which eventually was purchased by General Motors and made car bodies for GM until it was dissolved by GM in 1984.

The body styling was one of the many changes that Ford incorporated into the car during the 1911 and 1912 model year. 1911 was the only year that Ford made the "step side" style of body with steel skins.  The step side body, used since the car went into production in late 1908, is characterized by having the door sills and the front and rear seat compartments overhanging the narrower bottom of the body.  These features were deleted during the 1912 model year resulting in a more "streamlined" looking body.  This car was one of the last of the step side Model T's before the new bodies were serialized into the production line in early 1912.

Disassembling the body was messy, but uneventful.  LOTS of dirt accumulated in the various corners of the body and under the upholstery.  The original leather upholstery was in pretty bad shape, so it will be replaced with new upholstery from Classtique Upholstery.  It was interesting removing the upholstery and being able to see evidences of original paint.  The ugly green that was on the car when I bought it was painted in 1947 by the second owner.  The evidences of paint that I found under the car showed that the car was black originally, or what appears as black now.  It was also interesting to see some chalk marks on one of the seat backs that apparently one of the Baudette workers did back in 1911.

Doing a "frame up" restoration of course means getting it off the frame!  It is very helpful to have some sort of dolly that the body can be attached to for moving it around while working on the body and painting it.  I basically used two 2x4's that rested on some paint cans and furniture dollies when I restored the 1915 runabout.  I was not going to make that mistake again.  This time I built up a "rickshaw" shown in the second picture.  It worked much better, and it allowed me to move the body around as needed.

The body before removing the upholstery and paint

Dolly used for moving and working on the body

I'm cheating in this area

The Model T Ford mechanical and electrical system remained largely unchanged during its production run from late 1908 through 1927.  There were good improvements the ignition system during that time, the most important, in my opinion was the change to the standardized "KW style" ignition coil in 1913.  

The Model T ignition coil box, contains four coils that "buzz" and the electrical spark to each cylinder.  Ford bought these coil box assemblies from several suppliers before 1913, including Heinze, Kingston, Jacobson-Brandaw and K-W.  Each company's ignition box contained their own particular coil design, which were not interchangeable with the other's.  Lacking interchangeability is a manufacturer's and customer's nightmare.  

For those who have never seen a Model T coil, it is probably the best example of "steam punk" technology on the car.  It is a wood box filled crude looking electrical parts all encased in tar.  They take the low voltage alternating current from the car's built in magneto and converts it into a high voltage spark. The figure below shows the mysterious inner workings of the Model T coil box.  When operating, they each make a buzzing sound as the point open and close quickly.  These coils are enclosed in a box on the firewall and it sounds like a thousand angry bees trapped inside.

K-W coil used on all Model T's from 1913 and on

The pre 1913 coils tended to be finicky, making the car more difficult to run properly.  The big improvement was made by the K-W company with there new coil design, when they incorporated a "cushion spring" on the points mounted on the top of the coils.  The improvement was dramatic enough that Ford switched to this style of coil for the rest of the car's production.  A secondary, but important, benefit was that the cars now had a common size ignition coil that the customer could easily replace with a new one from Ford.  Eventually Ford even built these coils inhouse under license from K-W.

The 1911 Model T that I am restoring was originally equipped with the early style coil box.  Which is lost to history, because the first or second owner replaced it with a later year coil box that used the K-W coils.  Smart move.  The previous owner decided to correct this and found a used Heinze coil box that was correct for the car.  It must have worked well enough for him, because it was still on the car when I got it.

Heinze coils that came with the car

I was concerned about using the original style coils for the reasons given.  I like how the later K-W coils work, and I have experience rebuilding and tuning them.  There was only one guy in the USA who worked on the old style coils, and he unfortunately passed away a few months ago do to an apparent complication with the Covid booster.  He gave me some tips on how to check to see if the coils were good, and the Ohmmeter test that he suggested showed that all of the coils had a short in the windings, indicating that major surgery would be required to make those coils functional again.

I decided that this was one area that I was going to cheat on the restoration.  The Model T parts suppliers sell replica coil boxes that look like the early style ones, but are sized to accept the "modern" K-W ignition coils.  I got one of those boxes along with a new switch box that allows the driver to run the car on the engine's magneto or the standby battery.  Normally the battery is just used to energize the coils when starting the car.  Otherwise the driver needs to turn the crank at sufficient speed to generate the 4 1/2 volts needed.  This is really not a problem if the magneto system in the car is functioning well.  I almost always start our 1915 Runabout with the switch set to magneto.  The cars did not even come with the optional battery from the factory.  

The picture below shows the completed box with four early brass topped coils that I restored.  These coils were graciously given to me by Erik Larson, a Model T coil rebuilder in Idaho that rebuilt the coils for our Runabout a few years ago.  Since that time I have learned how to rebuild and tune them myself.

Replica Heinze coil box sized to accept K-W coils

The last picture shows a comparison of replica versus original Heinze coil box.  You can see that replica box is slightly larger.  The ignition wire attach locations are dimensionally the same, so no change is required for the firewall.  You may have noticed that the stain color is different.  I used Laurel Mountain Forge cherry stain, which is the most recommended stain by T restorers to match the original stain used by Ford.  My observation is that it does match really well the stain found on the original firewall that came with the car.  The original Heinze box may have been re-stained at some point.  Either way, my new coil box is going to work better and match the firewall!  

So, yes, I am cheating on the ignition system for this restoration and I am glad that I am!

Comparison of the original and replica Heinze coil boxes

Restoring the fenders

Scientists tell us that there are 118 elements in the periodic table.  I'll take their word for it, but for those of us who grew up in the Great Lakes area, we all know that there is an additional element; RUST.  I've mentioned before that this car spent 110 years of its existence in southern California, so that meant that there is not much of that dreaded 119th element included on this car.  The one area that I did find rust that needed repairing was on the fender flanges that attach to the bottom side of the running boards.  So why did they rust in these locations on a car located in sunny California?  The best that I can tell, the design is a natural trap for mud or water, which over time allowed them to rust.

The fenders and splash boards before the ugly green paint was removed

The first step in restoring the fenders was removing the paint completely.  The fenders are REALLY thin on these early Model Ts.  My dial calipers show that they are about 0.032" thick, or looking at it another way, 30 fenders stacked together would only be 1" thick.  What makes matters worse is that these early fenders did not have much 3D contours like later fenders, which mean that they are even easier to dent.  Instead of spending way too much time with an angle grinder equipped with a wire brush to remove the paint, I cheated and took them to Kansas Dry Stripping in Derby, Kansas that specializes in low pressure media blasting to remove the paint.  Traditional "sandblasting" would likely result in warping the fenders during the process.  I used this company to strip the paint on the 1915 Model T runabout that I restored a few years ago, and knew that they did great work.

I decided that the fenders were too thin to attempt to have the flanges repaired with brazing or welding.  Instead, I repaired them by structurally bonding steel doublers of the same thickness as the fenders and then encapsulated them with fiberglass for further reinforcement.  The fender repairs were cosmetically finished with body filler, resulting in stronger then new flanges.  

There were a few localized areas that also needed body filler to bring them back to original contour.  The front fenders also needed work to removed denting in the areas where the attach flanges mount on the front fenders.  I wondered how they could have been dented like this, and then I remembered the pictures of the 2nd owner letting different ladies to sit on the fenders to pose for pictures... The fenders are now done and waiting for priming and painting.

Fenders after being repaired and ready for priming and painting