Become a Member

Now is the time to become a member !! If you are a Model A Ford owner, or just thinking about becoming an owner we would welcome you into our club. We are always happy to talk about Model A's, give advice about Model A's (sometimes competing advice too -- its free you know!) to anybody that wants to listen. Dues are only $20 per year and you get to meet a bunch of nice people. Heck you can even come to our meetings and forget about the dues! We are an active club organizing tours from the day trip to the extended tour (i.e. Blue Ridge Parkway, MARC National meets etc.).
There's no excuse to not have fun!

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

Ford's Garage Prime Burgers and Craft Beer 2020 Visit

Richard, Don and Judy back in Florida this January made their annual trip to Ford's Garage. Richard was on business, Don and Judy on vacation. I wonder if Richard sprung for their meal as a business expense!
Just like last time, Don and Richard just can't figure out why this engine doesn't run. The just finished checking the oil and next will be looking for the radiator.
Judy , Don and Richard checking out the store's outdoor artwork.


Maybe next year Don and Richard will figure out how to get those engines running again. I'm sure they will have another visit in January 2021!

Sunday, January 12, 2020

Wheels On The Bus Go ....

January 4th the front and rear drums finally were ready to be mounted. The rear drums received our best looking rear bearings (we had 4 to choose from). Unfortunately this bearing is no longer manufactured and we have to rely on used bearings. New seals were installed. The front drums received all new bearing races and bearings. All bearings were packed with grease.

 
The wheels and tires have been temporarily mounted with the lug nuts and lug studs that we had. We sent out the original bus equipment to be cadmium plated. Once we receive them we will choose the best from everything we have.
 
And just to prove that the wheels on the bus go round-n-round, my grandkids lent me hand with that.

Our next mission will be to install the transmission and engine hopefully by the end of January.

Friday, January 10, 2020

Passenger Bus Workday Dec. 28, 2019


Our last bus workday for 2019 took place Saturday December 28th. We started by trying to install the Emergency Brake Shoes and quickly ran into an issue.
From our previous workday we mounted the Emergency Brake Carriers on the wrong side which meant the e-brake actuating shaft was in the wrong position to operate the e-brake shoe correctly. No problem this was an easy fix - but next time we will pay closer attention to the left hand/right hand !
Now we install the brake shoes for the front axle.

This day we also receive the engine from Don's workshop. He took the short block and installed the head, water pump, oil pump, oil pan etc. painting it and finishing it as a long block. In late January we plan to install the engine and transmission.
Here Randall is working hard on stripping the many years of paint off of the brake drums. It took a couple of days to clean all the years of dirt, crud and paint from the drums.
We also received this day four freshly refurbished, painted and new tires installed wheels. Three more wheels are to be completed later.
And finally as mentioned in a previous post, the short shaft, u-joint, rear torque tube was reassembled per Neil Wilson's recommendations.

January 4, 2020 the four wheels were installed - see the next post.

Passenger Bus Workday Dec. 17, 2020

On Tuesday December 17th, 2020 a few of us met to begin the assembly of the front and back backing plates and brake shoes. Below several of our members are mounting the back plate and emergency brake carrier.
Here we have aligned the cotter pins and are bending over the pin "the Ford way" (one long side only).

 
Placing the rear brake shoes.


Starting on the front backing plates. We were told that if you hold your tongue just right it makes the job easier!



Now we are adjusting the orientation of the castle nuts and cotter pin locations.



One side completed.
 Second side completed.
Our next workday was December 28th, 2019

Coastal Carolina Christmas 2019

After a successful Bus workday Saturday Dec 12th, we all gathered for our annual Christmas/Holiday celebration December 14th at Morgan's Tavern in New Bern, NC.
Below are a few pictures of our gang.



 We had various drawings for gift certificates from Bratton's Model A Parts and other items more appropriate for our wives. Finally I'm calling it "The Coastal Carolina New Bern Award" was given to me which will be re-gifted at our next Model A Christmas event to a deserving club member that exemplifies a special characteristic that I will decide needs to be recognized!
If you can't tell it is a bear hat. New Bern was founded by a Swiss nobleman in 1710 and is the second oldest town in North Carolina. 'Bern' translates to 'bear'.
And finally a group shot of our club members (a few of us are missing that couldn't make the celebration).

Thursday, January 9, 2020

Passenger Bus Workday Dec 12, 2019

Prior to the December 12th Workday a few projects were done. We received as a donation from Aries Limited Products a new muffler. You will notice that this muffler is for either the Passenger Station Wagons or the Commercial AA Trucks where the exit pipe is cut short. We will have to fashion our own tailpipe for the 157 inch wheelbase chassis (W157).
The Torque Tube was prepped with a finishing body glaze that was used to fill in the pits left from many years of exposure to the weather.

This was later painted black. The brake cross shaft was rebuilt with new bushing surfaces and brass bushings and the brake arms reattached by heating and peening the pins. This was then finished in black too.

The split rings for the wheels and tires were refinished with the body glazing compound to fill in the rust pits, sanded, primed and painted with simulated cadmium paint. Out of 10 split rings that we had, we were able to get 7 decently refurbished rings. Somebody PLEASE start to remanufacture these!!!

In preparation of mounting the wheels and tires we looked over the lug nuts and studs that Ken Ehrenhofer sent and decided that the cadmium plated ones weren't as nice as the originals in regards to pitting and finish. So we elected to send the bus' original parts back to Ken for plating. We also sent the hubcaps, but Ken found better hubcaps that weren't so beat-up. We will receive these in the New Year.
We discovered that one of the Brake Adjusting Shafts had a nasty crack in it. These parts are not remanufactured, they may look like the same as the passenger ones, but they are much bigger. I put out a request on the Ford AA forum website for a set and luckily I was contacted and was able to procure two pairs of NOS. THANK YOU !

Now on December 12th, 2019 two of us put together the rear end. Here we are greasing the ring gear surfaces all the way around. Seeing how we will have this chassis completed well ahead of the bus body, we thought it prudent to coat all of the gears in grease even though we will be filling the differential with gear oil. We felt that this was just an added protective measure to assure that the gears do not start to have surface rust in its wait for the body.
We applied 3M aviation high tack to the gasket to help keep the gasket in place.  We are using a 0.010 inch thick gasket which is the same thickness from the original one.
We applied gray forma-gasket sealent to the flanges and gasket before final assembly of the rear end.

Next we assembled the rear end, torque tube, u-joint (packed with grease) and short shaft to the chassis.
 You will notice that the brake cross shaft is mounted and finished here too.
Thank You to Neil Wilson for pointing out that Ford made a change to the assembly order of the short shaft. This was corrected later as will be shown in a later posting.





Our next workday was December 17, 2019