By John Daut
I must have been about 16 or 17 when I started learning to work on cars. Mom and dad had and old 1933 Ford V8 Tudor that hadn't been ran in a few years and dad was positive that it was stone cold dead, never to be revived. Being a teen, I was optimistic and just knew that I could get it going again. Of course the battery was long dead and wouldn't take a charge. I wasn't going to let a dead battery stop me, so I saved enough money to buy a new one. After I rode the bus to downtown, I walked over to Western Auto and bought a new battery. After I rode the bus back home, I installed the battery and run it down completely trying to start the car.
I don't know exactly why, but for some reason I knew that the carburetor must be bad. Back at Western Auto after saving more money, I was told that they didn't make carburetors that would work on the 1933 ford anymore. But, he said, if I changed the intake manifold to one from a latter model I could use a different carburetor on it and it would work even better.
For those of us who aren't mechanically minded the 1933 Ford used a single barrel carburetor. The air comes down through one opening at the top, mixes with the gasoline and exits through the bottom into the single hole in the intake manifold which divides the mixture into the 8 different passages to distribute the explosive air/fuel mixture to each cylinder. But it didn't exactly deliver an equal amount to each cylinder. So in the 1934 model, Ford had developed a 2 barrel carburetor, so that each barrel only had to divide it's charge of gasses to 4 different cylinders. The intake manifold had 2 holes on top to match those of the carburetor.
Sorry about the Hugh Downs explanation. Jack Parr once said, if you ask Hugh Downs what time it is, he tells you how to build a watch.
After saving some more money, I went to a auto junk yard and bought a used 1934 intake manifold and a rebuilt 1934 carburetor. I installed them and hooked up all the little rods and took the battery to be charged again. Needless to say, the battery run down before it even kicked a single time.
Oh yes, I almost forgot, dad who didn't know one part from another, was constantly telling me that I was wasting my money. The old car was just junk, dead and could never be revived. This of course just made the car even more mine and made me eager to prove myself.
I finally begged and whined enough that dad agreed to push me around the park one time with his city car and that would be the end of it (the park was a block wide and three short blocks long). We pushed it back into the street by hand. I got in, turned the switch on and put the car in second gear while dad got behind me with his car. He begin push me slowly with his window open so he could shout instructions as he pushed. We made the block and a half to the end of the park and I made the left turn ok. Then we got to the next corner and I made that turn OK also. The motor was turning but hadn't fired a single time. My spirits were dragging until we got about half way down the length of the park.
Then it happened, with a roar the engine started and the old ford accelerated to about 20 miles per hour. Now 20 MPH does not sound like much, but to a teen who never drove a car before, it was breathtaking. I could hear dad hollering to slow down and I was standing on the brake when I turned the corner. Dad was still hollering for me to slow down when I turned the last corner and I made it standing on the brake again.
This was my first time behind a steering wheel and I had the bit in my mouth, so to speak and I wasn't about to stop until I got in my own driveway. I got it slowed down enough to make it into our driveway. I got it shifted into neutral and sat there with the engine racing until dad came up and started hollering at me about going so fast and to get my foot off the gas pedal. I finally convinced Dad that I wasn't racing and my foot had never been on the gas pedal. He was convinced when he saw my foot was off and the engine was still racing. Then I turned the key off and the wonderful sound of the engine disappeared.
I discovered later that the carburetor on the 1934 Ford sat about a half inch further to the front then in the 1933 model. This meant that the little rods I hooked up were a little short and held the throttle open enough that the engine couldn't idle and in second gear the car was running about 20 MPH. Well, I fixed that and I could start the car anytime and sit and listen to that old motor purr anytime I wanted to. Of course I couldn't drive it because I didn't have a drivers license and dad was a Houston Policeman. Still, I was a teen with a car that I could drive someday.
Not long after that we moved to Eppes Street just off Telephone Road and the old Ford sat on the side of the street in front of the house where I could start it every once in a while and listen to it purr.
One day, a few months after we moved, I came home from school and my car was gone. When I ask mom what happened to my car, she said a lady down the street wanted to buy it, so dad sold it to her.
Dad, if you can read this over my shoulder from up there, you never did pay me for my labor and for what I was out for parts. Well, maybe you did in a lot of other ways.
bravenet.com
