Story and photos by Mark Wing.

This work day was quite a surprise as the work party regulars were joined by local members of the Shriner’s with their 1925 Model T fire truck.  The truck hadn’t run correctly for some years and, having seen our Tin Lizzies of Albuquerque display of cars at the September State Fair, decided to bring their malfunctioning Model T to Larry’s garage for repairs.  The symptoms didn’t look promising, it wasn’t running on all cylinders and there was black oil coming from the tailpipe.  Larry was initially concerned that the engine would have to be pulled, but his further testing showed that the primary problem was the carburetor was set too rich! The spark pugs were very sooty and the coils also needed adjustment.  Once these maintenance items were taken care of, and Larry had properly adjusted the carburetor, the truck ran smoothly.  Two of the Shriners joined the Tin Lizzies of Albuquerque as new members that day.  No doubt they will need access to Larry’s expertise and shop in the future – but they also got a sense of how much fun the hobby can be.

The other major project that day was Bill Hansen bringing his 1924 touring car “Irene” to have it’s spokes replaced with new ones.  Bill was concerned that the black paint job on the spokes could be hiding defects in the wood spokes, and he also liked the look of natural wood.  He bought enough spokes for the whole car and the spokes were replaced in a day using Larry’s hydraulic press.  Bill plans to give the new spokes a coating of linseed oil only. A problem of the rear parking brake shoes was also corrected.

Mark Wing brought along boxes of Ruckstell parts for examination.  The goal was to find enough parts to build a good Ruckstell rear end for his 1925 touring project.  The only part that was too worn to use without re-bushing was the housing.  Chaffin’s Garage sells this part very reasonably.  In addition to looking over and measuring parts for wear, the driveshaft was also cleaned up in preparation for final assembly.

Thank you to Larry for a great work party and welcome new Tin Lizzies members from the Shriners organization!