Car Guy Magazine Car Guy Magazine Issue 215 | Page 70

until the storm stopped. He then walked
back to his Model A pickup and found that
the hail storm had completely shredded
the canvas top covering. Since the car now
was “topless” he simply tossed his jacket
into it through the open top.
I still have that pickup which was built
it January of 1929 so it still had the old style
7 tooth sector steering gear. Dad mentioned that the steering gear was worn out
so bad that the steering wheel had about
an eighth of turn of slop in it. That made it
hard to drive so his trick was to drive near
the edge of the road so the car would pull
to the right and he would have to pull back
some on the steering wheel. It is a wonder
that he never went into the ditch.
Once he changed oil on the engine
and forgot to tighten the oil drain plug.
Thank goodness the car had an oil pressure
gauge on it and he happened to notice the
needle jumping around. He walked back to
where the trail or oil started, found the oil
drain plug, walked back to the dead Model
A, installed the oil drain plug, filled the engine with tractor motor oil and continued
on to the field.
Dad removed the Tudor sedan body
from the other car, shortened the chassis,
mounted the rear axle rigidly to the frame,
installed an auxiliary transmission from a
burned up 1929 Chevrolet and mounted
a 25 foot long paddle elevator above the
other Model A. He added a flat belt pulley
between the Model A transmission and
the Chevrolet transmission. By putting
the Model A transmission in gear and the
Chevrolet transmission in neutral, he could
use the power from the Model A engine to
drive the paddle loader and use it to load
grain. He used it in harvest to unload trucks
and well as later in the year to empty the
$35 each for a 1929 Model A Tudor sedan
Advanced Eight straight 8 engine. He fired grain bins and load trucks when hauling
and a 1929 Model A business coupe. It was it up and used it to burn the back off of the the grain to the grain elevator in town. This
like a sport coupe with no landau irons and business coupe. He then built a respect“grain loader” as we called it was quite an
had a trunk rather than a rumble seat. Dad able looking wood box for it and had his
innovation before the grain augers became
drove them home and then did something very first pickup truck. He usually drove it
popular in the early 1950’s.
terrible to each of them.
to the field and hauled fuel and supplies in
This car was featured on pages 22
Dad had a large Lincoln electric arc
the box. He mentioned working in the field and 23 of the May-June 2010 “Model A
welder generator powered by a 1934 Nash one day before a severe hail storm came
News” magazine published by the Model
along. The tractor had no cab so he hid be- “A” Restorers Club. This car was also menhind one of the rear wheels of the tractor
tioned but not show