Taking a 100-Year-Old Model T to a Ford Dealer for Service

case we've got a problem so we've been driving around in a 100-year-old Ford Model T for quite some time now and I think it's time we do some service but of course you don't want some idiots like us doing your oil change so we brought it here to Brighton Ford our local Ford dealer are they going to mess with it for us well crazy enough I called the manager and I said hey do you fix fours and he said yes we do and I said do you fix old fours and he said yes and I said what about 109-year-old Ford Model T and he said Bring It On in we'll give it a go so that's why we brought our 100-year-old car to a brand new Ford dealer and they're going to work on it for us what do you think Josh can you hook us up here they got this perfect floor right yeah and we are in this 100y old Rattle Trap we can we can ruin it in a matter of seconds all right Tommy well before we uh go to the dealership we got to well we got to get there we got to get there case and I think both of us forgot we don't have electric start yeah I was about to jump in the car here let me make sure oh come you don't break your arm your case she's cold she's cold man there we go oh yeah this vehicle's borderline human powered case I would say you're getting pretty good at that I don't know that one took me a little while should we choose a gear all right might have to onward soase pop your to contrary belief contrary to popular belief contrary to popular belief right something like that we believe it or not know how a wrench works well it's funny you mention that because Yeah we actually did just pull the head off of this car we cleaned up the valves cleaned up the head cleaned up the cylinders a little bit put a new head gasket in and we've got a freshly well it's not a record radiator but it's been gone through yeah so we had it flood we had it resealed cuz it leaked really badly yeah the radiator guy was like 90 years old that's running badly there we go radiator guy was like 90 years old and what did he tell you when you picked up his radiator yeah I went and picked up the radiator and he said that the last time he had done one of those radiators he said that was going to be the last time and he broke that rule for us but he said he wasn't breaking that rule again apparently not an easy thing to work on go figure mody radiator not an easy thing to work on which is funny actually because the rest of this car like when we had the head off of it well that was all pretty easy actually unbelievably simple so feel the power let's talk about our drive to the Ford dealer yeah we have tens of miles to cover yeah we're it's it's quite the Odyssey we're in uh Bird right here but where we have to go is Brighton and it's about 45 minutes away on some big roads in a normal car what are we thinking this is a terrible idea well we're going to see how it goes all right I you know I think for the viewers we have to try a little trip of the Model T the problem with this little trip is all of the roads are big yeah you know there's no such thing as like a little B- road to get to this particular dealer yeah we're still on our dirt road right now but uh yeah very soon we're going to hit the highway now the whole reason we did the work on this engine and on this radiator was to try to fix that legendary overheating issue yeah it was it was overheating a lot yeah and really really badly at every time we drove the car yeah and like every every 5 minutes well it only had to run for about 5 minutes and it would be done yeah and it was boiling over so we're going to see if we have fixed the problem I I'm not convinced we have fixed the problem but it was a experiment yeah I mean we've made it at least 3 minutes oh listen to that sounds like it's cam sounds like it's misfiring yeah there we go that's a little better somebody should put a cam in a model te well it has I mean you know big has a cam so the thing about getting a Model T tuned up really there's only one thing you need to adjust which is the ignition yeah unfortunately the ignition is very Antiquated and very hard to adjust how strange how strange go figure you would never guess by looking at the car this car has 3 to1 compression you want to remount that maybe uh I think now that we're off the dirt it might work well let's find out I think it's just heavy I think you're right but now we're on pavement i k smooth roads it's beautiful driving the Model T how lovely what a great day ah you know what I mean we're in second gear high range on the rear end we've got Andre and this Tahoe who we very well might rear end today I don't think Andre realiz where realiz is just how bad the brakes are in this car no uh the windshield we've hit a point where it's falling over that was that was exciting all right I'm TI on my side yeah uh yeah so if it's not obvious this car shakes a lot a lot have you know I'm set like dramatically so yeah yes although the seat is upholstered so much like a couch it's actually pretty comfortable to sit on I mean all you need is a little ottoman in front of you and you're basically on the couch yeah it'd be lovely and actually you to ride on the Model T very soft yeah like like we've said before this is actually a pretty decent riding car it looks like it would ride horribly yeah but it's so comfortable because they had to tackle Boulders and ditches and streams to get to the store only to get ganara you know the price to getting anywhere was ganara or polio or horrible diseases I don't know why people went anywhere is that is that a fact of history that's probably science yeah probably I didn't realize that Tommy yes the 1900s were a terrible time to be alive give us hell now oh things were better back in the old days well this car has 101 ways to kill you but I will say 109 years later it is still running it is I'd be surprised if uh if your Land Rover is running in 10 and how old is it in 90 years i' be surprised if my Lander was running in 90 days case yeah let's be honest about that so so far the roads are going really well cruising around maybe 30 mph car is not vibrating feels happy it's not even overheat in case I know we're keeping all the water in it Andre is going for a stop yeah so uh it's the thing about a Model T is it's actually it's it's easy to to to drive it in that doesn't take much to get it moving it's a lot harder to stop it doesn't like to stop no but that was that was all gearing actually stopping us there that wasn't even the brakes I'm learning so what I'm figuring out is the brake in the transmission case is a cotton band that stretches over a metal drub right is it actually cotton originally it was cotton yeah is this one rubber is that a thing that they update over time well they're now Kevlar oh Kevlar cool considering the bands haven't been out of this car in over 70 years yeah they might still be cutt well I hope it's klar because klar sounds a lot better than cotton I I don't know that for sure cuz I've never designed a belt for the transmission on this car but I know that no one's ever made a bulletproof vest out of cotton not typically yeah you know that know of but it's wild to think like we're designing a transmission for a a a motor vehicle yeah what should we make it out of cotton cotton yeah let let's out of C it's it's good enough for your trench coat it's good enough for a transmission in the car yeah why not no but I mean genuinely so these bands they need to be adjusted over time which is probably also why our brakes aren't very good cuz they haven't been adjusted in 7 years are they really oh yeah yeah um I see what you mean yeah and basically they wore down and then eventually they wear down to the point where they have to be replaced so kind of like this shirt you can only wash it so many times and then I got to put a new one in well that's a good point too so when we get this car to the Ford dealership are they going to be able to check our brakes are they going to be able to do they have oil for it yeah I don't know well so where are the brakes in this car well there's a cotton band in the transmission that Loosely tightens up to give you some resemblance of friction for your brake that's your brake yeah that's that's your brake and then whose idea was that brakes are made out of cotton too Tommy oh my God what did you get me into I don't think I would have ridden in this car in the first place if you told me the brakes were made out of cotton you ready to go on the highway with cotton brakes case no but the good news is there are there is an emergency break and the emergency break is also made out of cotton no it's made out of steel which is good except the brake shoe is also made out of steel there's a car behind us oh yeah I think he's going to be behind us for quite some time now apologies hey we're going at a good Pace right now I mean this is 27 mph in 50 Zone where is that phone you want to see how fast we're going yeah let's find out does the Wes tell you our speedometer is not connected cuz it was optional uh uh uh let's see should just tell you in the corner try navigating somewhere oh oh orom app has hold on continue oh yeah 33 you know there was that's magnificent back in the day there was this General consensus that if the human body hits 100 mph it will just be eviscerated cease to live oh yeah exactly I got another stop here so slowing down the Model T you slow down your throttle lever and then you slow down to your ignition and then I'm going to going to go for first gear and we're going to use engine braking and then at the very bottom of the hill that's when you're supposed to use your C Brak your cotton brake yeah I will say so it is possible for us to go faster in this in this vehicle but it doesn't really seem like it wants to go faster but we we might have to when we get to the highway there's our radio do we know oh it's in my pocket also another m M Improvement in this vehicle uh we've actually got leather straps to hold our top down now instead of the uh instead of the zip ties that we had before that's pretty good basically restored I don't think the zip ties were period correct and we have a leather strap holding the door on now so it won't fall off it's amazing the car is is like new it's like a Volvo in terms of safety oh yeah so that's probably 35 that's where it's happiest I can already see the cars on the highway that we're head toward they're I think they're going more than 35 Tommy are they excited to be going 35 behind a 100-year-old car they I hope so so far I'm feeling good about our Endeavor yeah you know I'm feeling pretty good it's a nice day it is a nice day it's and we got water in the radiator it's not boiling over yet yet everything is going to plan case so what's our plan at the four dealership here uh we're going to do an oil change what else do we think of uh they'd be willing to help us with if if they're going to work with us at all maybe they want to put tires on it I doubt it you think so you think they can Source tires for apparently well unsurprisingly a huge pain putting tires on this because they're very skinny wooden wheels and they have inner tubes all of which makes it not fun I don't think that these wheels I don't know this I don't have a tire machine and I don't we're obviously not mechanics but I don't know if a if a tire mounting machine would work on these wheels I I'd be surprised I think we're better off bringing it to a bicycle shop yeah or the Amish oh yeah are they big on model's they drive Model te's A lot I don't think they drive them no oh but they do have carriages believe it or not the Amish still made wheels for the Ford Model T really yeah pretty wild huh do carriages have tires they've got rubber all right that's a tire all right so this is the highway you feeling good about this a lot of things I don't know uh uh good as a word is going to be really scary holy yeah so the speed limits 65 cars usually do about 80 on this road yeah okay we're going to go for a down shift we're going to need first to climb the hill yeah we are actually going up a hill as well oh there's there's a good bit of traffic Tommy this is also not the quickest highway in between us and the dealership what's that speed uh it's not 65 that's the speed we're going though uh it's 20 it's 21 that's Full Throttle in a Model T this is a bad idea this bad idea um yeah I don't think we're merging in here safely I think we're going to have to get to the top of the hill before we can make a merge you want to turn the hazard on we don't have hazards we only have one light on the rear and it's powered by aine I mean the good news is if we get R ended instant death oh yeah we won't feel it we're going 27 is that even right that seems that seems about right seems optimistic almost we do have a little bit of Miss now coming out of the radiator oh yeah yeah we're starting to warm up a bit here oh look at the speed we're good now 30 yeah this is a bad idea should we this is a really bad idea we'll go should we reevaluate we may have to re-evaluate look I'm I'm not usually one oh my God I'm not usually one to uh to to back up in the in the face of adversity of a challenge with a at least with a vehicle uh but this might be a bad idea because this is not the fastest highway between here and Brighton and Brighton is still over 40 minutes away in a normal car yeah I'm not sure we want to go on I25 in this if I supect no that yeah okay we're we uh yeah we're uh we're we're pulling in here somewhere uh yeah oh God no brakes no brakes all right it Andre is making fun of us all right well you know whatever man it's it's a 109 year old car what do you expect Andre look we have we have a truck and a trailer this is not we don't want to break the car in in the uh pursuit of trying to to maintain it so I think we'll call it there is what you're saying and we'll go put it on the trailer yeah I think it' probably be smart to put it on a trailer all right we'll go put it on the trailer and then we'll cut back to the Ford dealer there we go so case even though we are incapable of doing an oil change we have done some work on our model T since everybody saw it last time yeah we actually pulled the head off of it we cleaned up the cylinders we cleaned up the head we cleaned up the valves a little bit we put a new head gasket in place and we also did a little bit of tweaking on the cooling system yeah so as you remember it was overheating really badly so we took our old brass radiat off and sent it to a shop who had it flushed and resealed now listen this radiator needs to be recorded but that is a quarter of the price of the entire car to do that so we started with the flush and a reseal and then over here we actually did something which seemed counterproductive but old model T guys say it's the way to go we actually removed our water pump so we're running this car just like the original thermos siphon cooling system would have you believe so we're going to see if that helps um but yeah K we also push some sediment out of the head some of the stuff that was built up in there so hopefully the cooling system will be better seems like it is so far yeah for sure all right we're going to pull it in now and get it up on the lift and let him do the oil change all right we're doing this right oh absolutely Keith is over here he's putting in the little uh yeah the little pad the little pad to not get our floor dirty oh beautiful nice thank you so much Keith is this going to break my wrist or is start I got your spark advance in the right spot homie oh yes beautiful walking in on the wrong side this one door thing is really very in the way man into the service Bay so what do you think first time these guys have worked on a Model team I'd say for the majority of them I would imagine so the car's 109 years old I don't think anyone who was around when this came out is still going to going to be working on them are we faster than a Model T yeah we are we are faster than the Model T it's a good thing we got decent bit of ground clearers for these Bridge Jacks oh yeah sweet got a bit of a misfire oh sounds good when you rev it they'll get it sorted out dud that's wild so Ray what is the oldest car you have worked on here here I probably worked on early 60 pretty old yeah pretty old not this old though not this old no 2.9 in L 4-cylinder right and I say is because it was all sand cast and some of them are three and some are 2.8 right um and there's no water pump there's no distributor there's no oil pump um there's no clutch Splash oiling and you got it yeah Splash oiling 100% And what was so cool about these I mean cool and bad is that the engine and the transmission shared the same oil right so really we're doing a multi-point flush today sure all in one go perfect you want to try starting it sure want to get that experience sure okay I'll run you through it so you got to make sure the spark Advance is completely down so it doesn't break your wrists and then we're going to give it just a little bit of throttle perfect and I'm going to go into the Magneto get it out of gear for you here make sure we're in neutral it's all you buddy I'm not really this strong but you are cuz you are a lot of years of experience but left hand thumb out and then you just start giving it a couple spins and ultimately you're going to need two hands but you'll get it eventually all right you're going to go okay so you got to push in and turn at the same time you got it yep and just multiple yep just like that starts better than a brand new car it does it starts better than most of the cars I work on dude that's crazy right yeah okay so okay so we' got one big ass bolt down here all right and I think if we pull that out hopefully all of our will come spilling out of her that's definitely not a 916 definitely not the internet lied to me I will say that's more like a 3/4 nobody on this side has a standard wrench because it's all metc metric no let's just cheat it a little bit we'll just we'll just do it the easy way go ahead and turn that lower petcock and that'll get most of the oil out of the engine as it going to shoot this way if it is kind of dribble out well I just didn't look at that just like that see so is a 90° petcock here so it's just a 90° valve okay yeah you got it R what's crazy to me about this is like the oil that they used 109 years ago can still be replaced with modern Ford oil it's just normal 10w40 5W30 whatever you got what it'll use and in the technology the oils and and stuff they had then versus what we have now now there's no comparison with the qualities with the additives what they do now compared to what it was I bet the bearing clearances and stuff when this were was built were the the tolerances had to have been astronomical where now new motor stuff you're you're talking tens of thousands of bearing clearances so this was to the nearest Foot probably in the day so well that's do that Ray yeah what are you inspecting if we were to bring this in for a full inspection talk me through what you think of the condition of our model T the biggest thing is we want to be sure our car is safe when it leaves so you'd probably fail those front tires yes absolutely would I send my wife out in it right if I won't send my wife out in it I I will warn the customer that there's a a potential problem would you send your wife out in this well around the block yes on the highway no no now Ray there is one part on this car that you could interchange with any of these trucks in the bay with a brand new Mustang do you know what that is there only one part that works the same in this car that does a new one I have no idea yeah I mean it people think like it's a bulb or it's you know like a switch or a bolt it's the shraer valves oh Tire shraer valve yeah that that's exactly the same I I can see that is that crazy yeah I I wouldn't I never thought of that no they got it right 100 years ago and they're like still using we're just going to stick with it exactly right Alex I do feel a little bad that we're dripping on this beautiful floor yeah you know it's fine cuz I'm going to do this you have oil or we need oil R I have some but it's honestly any 10w40 or 5W30 you got well what you got or anything in that vicinity we got 530 1030 520 or 1540 let's do 530 I almost guarantee this is the first time this has been used on the M uhh you said it takes 3 and 1/2 quarts I think probably a quart and a half drained out of it oh okay yeah so you can you can have Precision huh Ray you can di in just you you set your and it goes in here yep you got it okay all right I'll let you know when it starts coming out the bottom I don't know how fast it drinks here so okay we'll be ready we're two courts okay apparently that Lake down there was a little more than you thought I think you're right Ray oh we got flow okay so we're we're full we're full okay turn turn that valve off here we ended up putting 2.8 corks in it so technically it was like 3.5 but Ray it's 3.5 100 years ago I mean who knows where that going you know I'm sure it's burning as much of it as it was leaking I think you're right the the technology I think you're right do you want to try driving have you ever driven one I have not all the pedals are in the wrong place I think you got to give it a try I'll give it ay experience yeah you can't break all [Music] right oh what a [Music] pro all right all right my dude so we have three pedals and none of them work like they're supposed to okay um so your right pedal this is your brake right so that's going to slow you down middle pedal is revers I don't think we're going to need to worry about that and then your left pedal is your clutch and your gear selector and the way this works is it's kind of like a motorcycle so all the way down is first all the way up is second and neutral is right in the middle okay kind of like a motorcycle shifter so what we're going to do is with that handbrake you're not going to take it all the way off you're just going to slowly push it forward forward until it releases and then let go of the handle we're going to leave it right there so just enough so it disengages the rear brakes which I think you've done and then go ahead and slowly start pushing down on the left pedal and this is going to be your accelerator oh that's more and then left perfect yep okay got the thrt there you go my you're right it works backwards in the way you think it totally backwards so what you're going to do is once we get out of this way push all the way down on that left pedal yeah there you have it so we are in first gear dude B cake and then when you want to stop what you're going to do is just lift up on that pedal and then go ahead and slowly push down on the right pedal no that's reverse oh that's the weird part and then if you keep going eventually there you go not a lot in terms of brakes so pretty very yeah it's pretty easy it's it's definitely unique first time driving one oh yeah dude great so we're going to try out second in this one so this is going to be a slightly slower gear but what we're going to do is accelerate up to a faster speed nice so leave it in first so we get to a clearing and then we'll get you in second you can really feel the speed push okay so we'll make a U turn here yep that sounds good and then we'll get her a really opened up the parking lot to 20 mph woohoo I'll try and keep it under control all right so what we're going to do now is at this speed don't change anything but push the handbrake all the way forward and what that's going to do is unlock second so now I'm going to give you a little bit more throttle and you're going to slowly lift up all the way on the left pedal okay yep do it right now seconds hey holy cow Run's pretty good really doesn't it there you go Ray almost almost like they knew what they were doing back when this thing was built dude it's almost like Henry had an idea huh pretty smart guy isn't he Ray I got to say that was the easiest driving lesson I've ever done that's kind of cool you can tell that 40 years the Ford family really paid off so what you can do now is grab that handbrake and just start pulling it back towards you okay a little more and then it'll bring us to a stop dude nicely done nailed it piece cake now we need to find neutral nope you're good when you pull back on that lever it automatically it automatically ships it yep cool all right it's like a brand new machine man dude it's like they restored it amazing you put two quarts of oil in a car I don't know why these Restorations are $400,000 for some of these highend yeah man all they need is oil they just need two quarts of oil we could probably also use a pair of tires that wouldn't hurt set of tires might be good set of tires we'll be smart are we smart no no not at all it's not it's not what we're known for so what do you think Josh would you work on another one you know I think they would I wouldn't know how to charge it out cuz I looked in all day and there's no they don't have this in your system not in your system huh our system weird we would have to wing it Josh well thank you for winging it apprciate we appreciate we actually glad you brought this out yeah no that was awesome and I'm amazed that you guys said yes so right and forward folks it's a no-brainer and then when you're uh done with it we'll we may buy it and put in the showroom heck yeah we got to get we got to get raid to daily drive this thing tires we working on it we've got a set thanks [Music] guys so case yes we are all serviced up in the Model T how does it feel oh it feels great I I don't think uh would it felt bad before it was already pretty good now it's even better it is yeah and the work we did believe it or not I mean that the temperature is all the way at the top but it's not exploding with heat no it's it's not overflowing which is better than before good stuff yeah so let's see how she's driving we had more work to do we have to put a windshield on this thing yeah you know we got to get tires on this piece yeah it desperately needs the tires and it wouldn't be bad to do the Rocky Mountain brakes well did you my did my dad tell you the plan for this thing what we're going to do with it no he really wants to do Pikes Peak this summer oh okay which it has done in the past with someone Bolder than us because they did it without the Rocky Mountain brakes we would like to have those brakes because again we've talked about it before but if this slips out of gear you basically have no Brak got no brakes you're exactly right no brakes at all yeah now what do you think driving this thing by all these Fords do you see a connection between this 1915 Model T case oh they're so similar uh no it's it's not alike at all but it is fun coming here where there's all these brand new vehicles coming out Broncos and Mustangs Super Duties and showing up in this brass era car with a big brass radiator and wooden wheels that hasn't been restored since the 1950s 70 years ago which is before even most of the older guys at the shop were born unreal but this car is still running it's still running yeah and it actually you know there's there's an endless amount of work you can do on this car right to make make it perfect yeah that's not really what we want to do we want to use this car oh absolutely and drive it around and enjoy it just like you would have 100 years ago yeah there's plenty of these things that are parked in museums that don't go anywhere this one we want to actually use we want to make videos with what it's like to operate because that's just more fun yeah case I mean look I think what you said is true there's I mean there's still probably 50,000 model te's on the road the over 8 million they made right because it's just such a big number but none of them are really being used okay a couple crazy people on YouTube are still using them yeah but for the most part you know they're they're kind of dead yeah and getting to see one on the road is pretty exciting because a lot of people know what this car is a lot of people don't know what it is but are interested in it because it obviously doesn't look like anything else on the road and apart from the Cyber truck that we bought recently I don't think I've been in or around another vehicle that has people gather around it the same way that people gather around this car because it's just so different you really of course you don't see them anymore cuz yeah it's more than a century old yeah and everybody wants to know about it you're 100% right it just it it it Peaks people's curiosity but what's amazing is they're really not that expensive no you know so I think we paid 122,000 for this car which is right about market for a brass air bottle mod T yeah but if you get a later one like a 23 and newer metal wheels and yeah few things that aren't quite as old school as this you can pick them up for like 8 n Grand and I mean that's a lot of car for $99,000 you know what I mean well it's a lot of experience I'll say that much I have absolutely and and a a little surprising to me just how much I've enjoyed using this car it is a lot of fun even if this doesn't necessarily appeal to you as something you would want to have in your garage which I understand because it is pretty limited use vehicle it's such a cool experience to get to be around it and drive it there's nothing else on the road like it I mean the Driving Experience is unlike anything right this like crazy pedal Arrangement and the the uh the throttle on the steering column and the having to advance the spark nothing else in the world oh it drives like this Model T more like a John Deere than any other car that I've driven but I really think you'd be hardpressed to find another vehicle for eight grand that's going to get people as excited on a day-to-day basis as this car when you take it out on the road it's never going to happen no you're never going to find anything else that's going to get people this excited it's truly amazing yeah well case we did prove the four dealer would work on our model T it was a really cool experience and in the next video we're going to have to go do something kind of crazy with this thing I think we put tires on it imagine and then we go take it on an adventure yeah and tires is not going to be a simple task no that's going to be horrible should we pull up on the trailer here uh yeah why not this will get us back home there's some pretty fast roads between here and the [Music] ranch oh dude look at the torque Tommy look at that it can hold on that incline without even stalling wow didn't even overheat a little not even a little bit okay dry oh yeah it's it's mostly dry [Music]

Channel: TFLclassics

Views: 3,972,216

Keywords: ford model t, model t, model t ford, ford t, t model ford, ford, t ford, ford model t transmission, model t transmission, t model, ford model t (automobile model), ford model t engine, how to drive a model t, henry ford, how to drive a ford model t, how to start a ford model t, 1915 ford model t, ford model a, ford motor company, ford model t top gear, ford model t clutch, ford model t automobile, Ford Model T oil change, Ford dealership

Id: 4vKDKC_8ncQ

Length: 35min 16sec (2116 seconds)

Published: Sun May 26 2024