Story and photos by Mark Wing

Saturday, January 6th was the first work party at Larry’s garage for 2018.  The work party was well attended with a wide range of projects.  There were also some new faces visiting Larry’s Garage for the first time:  John Covan (friend of Mark Wing), Carmen Barnhouse (wife of Gene), and Leonard (friend of Frank Lewark).

Projects included Mark Wing and Dave Ferro disassembling and removing the rust on a rear spring assembly for Mark’s 1925 touring car project.  Frank Lewark and his friend Leonard were working to remove a broken off manifold stud in a 1923 engine block.

Phil Lance brought a front axle from a 1926 roadster for rebuilding.  The wishbone/spring perch nuts were rusted frozen, so Larry used the technique of heating the nut and melting paraffin into the threads.  This technique worked great and made the nut removal a lot easier!  Larry had recently helped Kirk Peterson (our current club president) with the caster angle on the front axle of Kirk’s 1925 coupe.  After Larry and Kirk corrected the angle, the car was much easier to steer.  Larry wanted apply his newly developed techniques to check Phil’s front axle while it was apart and the best way to do this was to attach and level it on the bed of Larry’s Bridgeport mill and check the angle of the two spindle kingpins.

Larry gave first-time visitors John Covan and Carmen Barnhouse driving lessons in his very original 1923 Model T coupe.   The driving was done on Larry’s full-sized soccer field.  What a great introduction to the hobby!

With Bill Hansen’s assistance, both Kirk’s coupe and the Duncan’s 1920 touring car headlights were being converted to 6 Volt LEDs.  This process required changing out the bulbs and adding a grounding wire.  Both conversions were successful and the LEDs will use little energy and greatly improve night visibility.  For more information about the LED bulbs, contact Bill Hansen (kfbbill@comcast.net).

Eddie Paquette (Milan, NM) wanted to flatten a warped cast iron head and Larry has a vintage Peterson large head and manifold surface grinder for this application.  Before resurfacing, it was possible to slip a 0.002″ thickness gauge under the head.  It was super flat once Eddie was finished with the grinding operation.

Thanks Larry for a super productive and interesting work party!