Story and photos by Mark Wing

Don Neidigk brought a restored wheel to his 1926 coupe to the work day at Larry’s garage. He had stripped the paint and carefully clear coated the refinished the wood. It looked very sharp and is a glimpse at how nice the car will be when it’s complete. Don was also concentrating on rebuilding his rear differential housings. The spring shackles needed new bushings and the inner and outer Hyatt bearing races needed to be replaced. After the worn-out parts were restored, the housings were prepared for painting.

For next year’s Montana 500 race, Kirk and Larry have been assembling the parts to make them competitive with the more seasoned participants. The plan for 2022 is that each of them would enter a car in the race whereas this year (2021) only Kirk had an entry and Larry served as a passenger/mechanic. Next year, Kirk will enter “Buster”, his 1924/25 coupe again, and Larry will enter a 1925 Runabout that he had been using as a “take-apart-car” for years. Among the anticipated improvements are Stipe “Montana 500” camshafts. Larry had sourced two of these rare parts and was pleased to present Kirk with one of them. Larry had also ordered a large camshaft gear with adjustable timing developed by Steve Conniff. At this time, Larry’s 1926 engine block it at Empire Engines, the club’s favorite local machine shop, for boring and decking. He was also cleaning some rear differential housings for his Montana 500 Runabout.

Paul Duncan was pressing onward on his 1918 pickup truck project. With the engine rebuilt and new tires installed, it was time to mount the wheels back on and reinstall the engine to the frame. These tasks were made very manageable with the fenders and firewall off.

At this work day, Mark Wing brought transmission drums to be disassembled. These were an eBay purchase, and sadly, the reverse drum was broken during transit. The reverse drum gear will be sent to Dave Nolting to be mounted on a new ductile iron drum. He also brought a reground camshaft for assessment. Larry has a very thorough technique of measuring the camshaft lobe dimensions. It turned out that the exhaust and intake lobes were around 0.020″ different in lift – something Larry hadn’t seen before. Even though the performance would be better than a stock Model T, this camshaft will be shelved for now in favor of new Stipe 250s for the 1909 and 1915 Coupelet projects in progress.

Dave Ferro plans to use his 1924 Model T touring car on the late September club tour to Las Vegas, NM. The car was acquired from fellow Tin Lizzie member Orlando Ortega, but hadn’t been used for several years. Among the items on Dave’s “to do” list are adding Rocky Mountain brakes and new tires, inner tubes, and flaps. It was a warm day and leaving the new tires in the sun helped ease the installation. With assistance from Paul, Larry, and Mark, all four wheels and the spare were finished that day.

Thank you Larry for a terrific work day at your garage!