Story and photos by Mark Wing

This was the third Saturday in a row that Larry had opened his shop for a work day. This was due to the large number of projects in progress right now. There are around seven engines at his shop in various stages of restoration or repair as well as several other projects in progress. Visiting Larry’s Garage for the first time was Lee Darlington of Bosque Farms, NM. Bosque Farms is a rural community on the Rio Grande approximately 33 miles south of Corrales, NM (the location of Larry’s residence and garage). Lee owns a 1925 Model T coupe.

Phil Lance continued work on building a differential for parts he’s collected for a 1926/27 speedster. In addition to wire brushing his stash of parts, he and Larry were checking the dimensions of components such as the driveshaft to make sure they were in usable condition.

Al Schwanke continued working on his 1926 touring car. Kirk Peterson helped Al reline his transmission bands with new Kevlar linings. Cracks in Al’s low band and reverse drums had totally shredded the previous set of linings. New Dave Nolting ductile iron drums should prevent cracked drums in the future.

Although he couldn’t make it to this work day, progress continued on Don Neidigk’s 1926 coupe that had recently had it’s valve seats reground. The project was left at the previous work party with the carburetor needing to be installed. Several club members continued working on the project by connecting the carburetor and troubleshooting a hard starting problem. The primary starting problems turned out to be a low battery, high-resistance battery connection, and intermittent ignition switch. With a large battery charger attached, the poorly installed battery terminal got hot enough to melt a lead connector. The connector was replaced and securely fastened. The crew also found that by wiggling the key, the car would either start or die. When it did finally start, it ran smoother after some adjustments, but the faulty ignition switch will definitely need attention.

Visiting Larry’s Garage for the first time was Lee Darlington of Bosque Farms, NM. Lee had heard about Larry’s Garage from our car shows at venues like the NM State Fair, and he also followed our club’s activities on our website. On this day, Lee brought a starter for his 1925 Model T coupe that he had purchased from an Albuquerque resident approximately four years ago. Lee found that the coupe was hard starting, with insufficient torque to start the engine. He found that applying 6 or 12 Volts directly to the starter made it turn very strong and fast. Larry tested the starter and got the same results. He suggested to Lee that there are as many as six electrical connections that could impact starter performance such as a bad ground or corroded contacts in the starter switch. Lee agreed that that was most likely the problem and would check these potential problem areas at home.

Mark Wing brought upper and lower steel windshield halves for his 1913 Model T touring project. Mark has a 1913 frame (the Vanguard model that folds forward), but the frames are very rusty with some areas of complete rust-through. These reproduction windshield frames were purchased on Ebay and had only minor surface rust. They were also around one sixth the price of new ones out of the catalogues!

In addition to relining his transmission bands, Al Schwanke was also at the stage on his engine rebuild where the front main bearing needed to be fitted and the end play set. Larry, wanting a nice high-quality job, wanted to keep the end play to around 0.002″ – 0.004″ even though this car would be running oil slingers instead of magnets. Running off of a battery, the end play wasn’t as critical as a car relying on the magneto, but Larry (who has a reputation for quality work) wanted to set the end play to a tight tolerance anyway.

It was a very busy work day with a lot of projects in progress. Thank you Larry!