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August 9, 2009

THE OFF SEASON: Taking the ‘Tin Lizzy’ for a spin

By Mike Lunsford

MECCA — I can laugh about it now, but I actually saw newspaper headlines flashing before my eyes for a few seconds last week: “Writer dies in Model T test drive crash.”

Let me explain…

We own a 1926 Ford Model T coupe, and it’s not because I fanatically believe in keeping our cars until they wear out, either. The old Ford hasn’t been with us very long at all; it never belonged to a dear grandfather or uncle, wasn’t bequeathed to us in a will. My wife simply wanted her dad — a man who dearly loved running his ’27 Oldsmobile in the Newport Hill Climb every year — to have another car to tinker with as he struggled with failing health. So, despite the fact that my father-in-law just wanted to see the T as it was auctioned off two Septembers ago, Joanie bought it instead and watched him drive away from the Parke County Fairgrounds as happy as a man could be.

I think the price was worth that one moment to her; his very first car, also a ’20s-something Model T, had burned in a garage fire years before, and he always wanted another.

Gib never got to drive the car again; his bad heart soon took precedence over his hobby, and despite the fact that he spent a few hours with the hood folded up and his tools on the running boards, he died without ever getting it out on the road.

This spring, my wife and son (he put a little of his own money into the Model T kitty, too) and I decided to clean and sell the car. It had been parked in an ancient dusty garage — once a schoolhouse, my son recalled his grandpa telling him — for months, dry but dirty.

We knew the T needed a new head gasket, and perhaps a few other minor repairs, so before we put it on the sale block, we decided to get it fixed.

After an initial diagnosis from a man who knows Ts, Joanie’s cousin, Arnold Wayne Alexander — who collects and rebuilds antique cars himself, including a Model T truck and a sweet-looking Model A — said he was more than willing to come down from Three Rivers, Mich., to spend an afternoon working on our ride with us. Two Saturdays ago, Arnold Wayne kept his promise, and Evan and I put on our grungy work clothes, grabbed my tool box, and went to meet him.

My wife’s cousin is a fine man; at 78, he is infinitely patient and soft-spoken. He loves to fiddle with old cars and obviously admires their unique quirks and idiosyncrasies. Before we were done, we had spent eight or nine hours up to our noses in grease and gasoline and noxious exhaust fumes, but we enjoyed ourselves.

Evan and I already had removed the head from the car’s motor a few days before, but by the time I arrived that day, Arnold Wayne had completely cleaned the car’s four valves and had drained and refilled the crankcase with oil. We eventually got the new gasket in place, the head back on — ironically such a small motor requires 18 bolts for that — and the radiator hose re-connected. New spark plugs came next, then a used but new-to-that-Model T starter coil was added to the three good ones already in place. The engine immediately turned over when Arnold stepped on the starter.

Our biggest hang-up came with the fuel line. The car had spent a lot of time sitting in the garage, but only after we had blown air through the gas tank and thoroughly flushed it, had cleaned the gas line and carburetor, did we get the car started.

“That engine sounds fine,” Arnold Wayne said as it sat and chugged in the driveway.

Before he left that night, Arnold gave me an impromptu lesson in driving the Model T. Henry Ford first rolled the car off an assembly line — he was yet to perfect the speed of that — in 1908. It was designed to be driven by people who never really had handled a car before; most had steered farm wagons and buggies. And, regardless of what you’ve heard, the car, even then, did come in a variety of colors. Ours is characteristically black.

The T has three pedals and a hand lever on the floor. It also has two smaller levers on each side of the steering column: one controls the accelerator; the other controls the spark. Reverse is attained by stepping on the middle pedal; the brake is on the right, while pushing the left pedal all the way down puts the car in low. In its middle position, the pedal keeps the car in neutral; allow it to come all the way back and the car is in high gear. Ironically, the large floor lever also serves as the emergency brake. Got it?

Last week, Evan and I decided it was time to drive the car ourselves, and we dutifully followed Arnold’s every instruction. The choke was in the right position, the key switched to battery, not magneto, and the car started. A sticky reverse pedal made backing out of the garage our first big adventure, and I promptly killed the engine before I could ram into a maple tree. After we plumped the tires with a few pounds of air, we decided to go for a spin.

I’d like to think that I can drive anything with a clutch; after all, I was raised with tractors and trucks and jeeps. But having experience with a traditional clutch actually hurts the novice Model T driver. In an automatic reaction to disengage the gears, I was actually stomping the car into low gear. We shot into the road without benefit of looking to see whether there was oncoming traffic. I also overcorrected the steering wheel and swerved wildly from ditch to ditch for a while until I straightened out. I’m sure that Evan — had he not been petrified himself — would have laughed at my white knuckles and sweaty face.

I flunked my first test behind the wheel of a Model T mightily. I might as well have been trying to dock a supertanker in a clothes closet or land a helicopter after the pilot had passed out at the stick. I never had the car’s spark adjusted correctly, never could get the throttle just right when the car was in either gear, and had a miserable time just getting it to slowly pull itself up the incline of Jack Brown’s driveway after we’d come to a stop there. I truly believed I’d trash the thing before I ever got it home.

A half-hour into our neck-jerking journey, and an equally poor attempt by Evan to drive it, we got the car back into the garage, the lesson learned loud and clear that old technology was not necessarily easier technology.

As it turned out, Arnold Wayne called to tell me that he’d be back down to look at the car; his wife had seen a piece of stained glass in a local antique store to buy. He wanted to know if I’d be interested in taking the old car for another “spin.” We did just that, but with Arnold comfortably and competently at the wheel. For him, the car acted like a perfect gentleman. Arnold handed me an original Ford band wrench to commemorate the moment and said, “Have fun with the car.”

I hate to say this, but I don’t think I’m going to miss the Model T that much when it’s sold; I’ve never really developed an affection for it. But, I had better gird my loins and set my jaw; we’re going to try to start the old Oldsmobile before long.



Mike Lunsford can be reached at hickory913@aol.com or through regular mail c/o the Tribune-Star at P.O. Box 149, Terre Haute, IN 47808. Visit Mike’s Web site at www.mikelunsford.com. His second book, “Sidelines: The Best of the Basketball Stories…” is due to be released in October.

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