Greetings all,
I will be at Westtown on our 45th, and look forward to seeing everybody. The past 5 years have kind of flown by. Last year Jerry Jordan, my partner of 25 years, and I got married. That's my news.
Below is a description of another high point in our '09, about Jerry's Model T speedster.
Thanks for the website, Walter. It's good to see what people are up to.
Kathleen Clement <kecparks
live.com>
Jerry's Model T Speedster - Maiden Voyage by Kathleen Clement August 1, 2009
Jerry, my husband, has had a project going for several years now which is the building of a Model T speedster. This has taken a while as he interspersed a lot of other things among bouts of working on the speedster in his shop. The speedster started as a frame. He put an engine in it, transmission, body on, wheels and tires, brakes, windshield, just everything. One of the last efforts was to make the bench seat for 2, which is the only thing he had help from me on.
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The engine is fast and powerful and advertises itself loudly, making anything from a growl to a roar. A master mechanic
named Kyle Holman rebuilt the four cylinder Model B Ford engine. The Model B engine originally came in a 1932-34 Ford, the updated version of the Model A which came after the T.
The transmission is from a Lincoln Zephyr, the steering is from a '32 Ford. The differential is a Model A with the quick change center section, currently being remanufactured in New Zealand
The body is uniquely combined from various sources. It is mostly not painted, and looks rusty and its age which is a 1927 Model T roadster with fenders removed. It is an open car, seats two, and has a little trunk area that is in a "turtle deck". The modern gas tank is in the trunk. The car has no windows or a top. All it has is a windscreen.
A speedster is basically made from spare parts, generally performance enhanced, and is designed to scoot around in. Many of the early race cars graduated onto the racing scene from speedsters that were originally used by gophers to chase down parts.
On Thursday, July 30, Jerry took the speedster out of the shop and tried it out all over the property, his first time to drive the car. There are various roads on our acreage, and Jerry surely tried them all. Thursday being my errand day in Flagstaff, he had the place to himself, and really enjoyed driving the car, getting used to it, and putting it through its paces as much as he could on our gravel and dirt roads. When I got home in the late afternoon, he was still in the car, grinning from ear to ear, and told me to get in and fasten my seatbelt. He accelerated across a little straightaway as fast as the surface would allow, with a fishtail thrown in for effect no doubt. It was quite thrilling. He slowed up and drove the car around a circle in the woods across from the house,
and as we got back to the straightaway, the dust still hung in the air, even though there was a breeze.
But this was not the maiden voyage of the car, as it was on the property the whole time Jerry had been testing it. I asked how long he'd been driving it, and he said "Oh, a couple of hours." [!] By the way, for the test drive, the doors were not yet on their hinges.
The next day I kind of thought Jerry would be itching to get the speedster out on the road, and especially on the pavement. He went to adjust the brakes, put the doors on, as well as the license plate which he calls a tag being from Alabama. He put the registration in a ziploc bag, and I gathered some warm shirts, etc., and off we went. Luckily we had had a little shower just before the maiden voyage, enough to settle the dust on the gravel road, and not too much to make the road muddy. The sun was shining through clouds as we left. Jerry drove us about 5 miles when suddenly we smelled a lot of gas, and it turned out that one of the dual Stromberg carburetors was acting up. We turned around and went back to the shop where Jerry found and fixed the problem while I got some grapes and almonds for the road (it was about 6 pm by now), as well as my trusty ear protectors which I used to wear whenever J. and I went on our chainsawing wood-gathering trips in the old days before we got a propane heater. I digress. The fact is that the car has a straight exhaust to enhance its performance. Instead of a muffler, it has a spark arrester which only partly diminishes the roar.
So now we were off in earnest, the sun shining lower through clouds, the speedster making its own breeze as we drove along. We could see everything, such as a scurrying rabbit off to the side, and various birds. We could smell everything, such as the detergent wafting from one house's laundry. We were truly out there on the open road just like Mr. Toad.
We drove south towards Parks, through forest and a few open places, eventually reaching pavement after some 6 miles. Jerry spotted bigfoot tracks some jokester had recently painted across the road into Parks. Jerry turned west at Parks, and headed for some hills on legendary old Route 66, not to go fast, but to do some breaking in of the engine at slightly lugging speeds. This section of Route 66 is now mostly somewhat newly paved with asphalt, but there is a stretch made of narrow old concrete that is pretty well covered with spidery cracks filled with asphalt. Part of this road was still damp from a previous shower and the vegetation smelled fantastic. To the west, a beneficent cloud otherwise in blue sky covered the sun as we drove. Below the cloud, the sky was developing from pale blue to pastel tangerine. We reached the bottom of the biggest hill on t he trip where Jerry turned around to go back. There was a short fat double rainbow to the south as he made the U turn. Because the light then came from behind us as we headed east, pines scattered on green grassy hillsides looked especially beautiful.
The car had performed perfectly ever since the carburetor repair. In a speedster there is a minimum of talking. Young boys hear and see a speedster, and stare avidly as one passes. One towhead about age 7 at the Parks community garden with his mother looked as we passed. Another boy had his face pressed up against the glass at the backseat window of the car he was riding in. A few men also stood and stared as the speedster went by We returned by way of Parks Feed and Mercantile where Jerry tanked up on high test. A gray-haired woman had followed us for several miles right into the filling station, just so she could ask, with wonder in her eyes, what Jerry was driving. "It's my race car." he said. She said it sure moves right along, and something else about her father having an old car.
We turned toward home, the air cooled by now, so Jerry wrapped an extra shirt around his neck, and I put on a neck gaiter. We ate grapes and almonds. The sun had set by the time we drove along one particular open stretch of road. The sky was pink above the black line of forest Four red and amber indicator lights glowed on the dash, indicating various electric pumps and a cooling fan.
We got home where Jerry pulled the car into the shop. I went to do the chickens before going inside to start dinner. Jerry cooked lamb chops which were a most satisfying conclusion to the maiden voyage in the Model T speedster.
Kathleen, with technical and editorial assistance from Jerry - Saturday, 8/1/09
We enjoyed more rides until the weather got too cold in the fall, and anticipate getting back on the road with the speedster once spring warms sufficiently.