Here Comes Monday!

Back To The Old Grind!

Tuneup

The Father-In-Law has a '94 Chevy pickup with 111,000 miles on it. Recently it began running a bit rough, and we put some alcohol in the gas, in case the problem was caused by water in the tank. The missing only got worse, so I knew it was time for a tuneup. I have changed his plugs a few times, but never had changed his distributor cap and rotor. While I was in the local parts store, I also bought new plug wires.

Click on the distributor cap to see just how gnarly it was. The new parts have it running like a new car again. You can work on your own car and save $$$$! The hardest part of this job for the novice is hooking up the plug wires to the distributor cap in the correct order. Draw a diagram before you pull the old ones, or note which electrode is Number 1, and know your firing order. Piece of cake!

Click on the Under The Car label to see more service jobs you can do at home.

Crankin' It Up: Request Line Bonus

We had a request through YouTube for this song, and a thorough search of our record cabinets yielded one copy of "Oh Dem Golden Slippers." This is a 'hillbilly' record by Smilin' Tubby Johnson from the 1930's made on the Champion label. Several early country artists, such as Carson Robison cut records with this company. This record has been well used, and we played it on our Brunswick, because we haven't modernized to an electic record player yet at True Blue Studios.

Weekend Steam

This cute scene is from the September-October 1964 issue of the Iron-Men Album Magazine. These are probably farm kids, judging from the mailbox planted in a ten gallon milk can. Farming was a tough proposition in the good old days. A gallon of milk is a little over eight pounds, so moving a bunch of full milk cans was not a job for someone with a weak back. Minneapolis engines are really pretty when they are painted up in their factory colors. You can see an engine like this one at the beginning of Steam Traction Potpourri on my YouTube channel. I can't help but wonder if these kids grew up to be steam engine enthusiasts.

Crankin' It Up

The request line was open this week, and one of my YouTube fans wanted this song, which his father used to sing. The man may have learned Red Wing from a record just like this one, which was pressed about 100 years ago. Any fiddler worth his salt had Red Wing in his reportoire, and you did not stand a chance in a fiddlin' contest if you couldn't knock out a good version of this favorite.

Lighting Up Your Life

Ford made some improvements to the Model T during the 1915 model year, so the switch could be made from gas lights (above) to electric lights (below). The magneto coils and magnets were increased in size to handle the additional load, but you had to be a thinker to get along with the Model T lights.

The headlights were both 9 volt bulbs, wired in series, but the voltage delivered from the magneto varied with the engine speed. At low speeds the lights would be dim, and if you drove fast enough to make the lights 'blue', your lights were about to blow. This often happened to Ford drivers as they punched the clutch pedal down to low as they made a corner. The downshift would make the engine rev up suddenly, the lights would go blue, and then the world would become very dark. If you drive one of these fine machines after dark, you should definitely have a kerosene lantern with you to hang on the radiator so you can see to get home. Lacking that, have a passenger with a white shirt get out and walk ahead of you to keep you out of the ditch.

The electrical reference in Dyke's Encyclopedia is only one page, but then this was before power windows, radios, and dash lights. There wasn't much need for dash lights in your Ford, unless you had an electric starter and generator. If you had those options, which came out in 1919, you also had an ammeter. Holy Cow! Instrumentation! Click on the image to enlarge, and then save to your hard drive for future reference. Click on the T's label to see all the pages posted to date. Next time we learn how to hop up your Ford.

Changes

This once busy farmstead would bring a tear to the eye of the proud farmer who hitched his manure spreader behind a team of horses. It was a modern machine, with steel sides instead of wood, and it was probably pulled by a tractor within a few years of its delivery to this dairy farm. If this farmer had sons, they probably fought in WWII or Korea, and postwar changes doomed this dairy operation. The government grain bin in the background is a testament to the growing dependency on 'programs.'

The dairy barn is ready to be burned, and the fire will crumble the mortar in the silos, bringing them down.

This farm even had a producing oil well at one time. These tanks are from the early years of the Illinois oil fields, and are made of redwood.

March Came In Like A

I'm calling it...

Not My Victrola

Coon Sander's Original Nighthawks Orchestra plays the jazzy 'Kansas City Kitty' (1929), posted by edmundusrex over on YouTube. This will help you start the week on a positive note.

Here Comes Monday!

Back To The Old Grind!