Story and photos by Mark Wing

Larry held a work day on Tuesday, September 8th that focused primarily on repairs to Andy Andrew’s 1924 Model T touring. Andy, of Durango Colorado, was a former Tin Lizzies of Albuquerque member in the 1980’s, but due to his geographic location and the need to focus on his photography business, Andy decided to let his membership in the Tin Lizzies of Albuquerque lapse. Fast forward to 2020, and the now retired Andy recently rejoined the club and trailered his car down from Durango. Andy’s touring car was professionally restored in Arizona in 1984, but the car hadn’t been driven for the past 15 years. The goal was to get the touring on the road again, but in its current condition, it was running poorly and generally lacked power.

Larry did a compression check and found that the number 3 cylinder was reading especially low. It turned out that the exhaust valve was badly burned. Initially, the plan was to replace that valve only, but Larry decided that it was best to replace all intake and exhaust valves. In addition, the exhaust manifold gland rings were missing which allowed the cast iron manifold to slump out of alignment with the engine block ports by almost 1/2″! Luckily, both the new oversized valves and a new exhaust manifold were in the Club’s inventory.

Andy had a new roller timer to replace the worn out one on the car. A short on one of the timer contacts was also repaired. Larry suspected that another cause of the touring’s poor performance was the worn Kingston L4 carburetor. The club had a rebuilt Holley NH carburetor in stock so it was installed too.

Other maintenance included Kirk Peterson replacing the fan belt with a shorter one to prevent the belt from rubbing against the commutator. The magneto output wasn’t consistent, so the magneto post was checked for condition and contamination. There were no contaminants under the electrical contact, but the contact spring was found to be weak. Luckily, the club had a replacement magneto post in stock so Mark Wing and Kirk replaced it. Paul Duncan removed the front wheels and cleaned and greased the bearings.

While the head was off on Andy’s touring car, it was an opportunity to flatten the head on Larry’s large surface grinder. Marilyn Duncan cleaned and wire brushed Andy’s touring head, as well as other club member’s heads, prior to the grinding operation. While the grinder was setup, the head for the Duncan’s 1918 touring car project, the head for Don Neidigk’s 1926 coupe, and two low heads for Mark Wing’s projects were also flattened at this work day.

The final result was that Andy’s touring car performance was much improved after the all the work. The car has much better performance and will be driving the roads of Durango, CO soon. Thank you to Larry and the volunteers who helped on this project. Welcome back Andy!