A Hack & His Strombergs

When I was in college, I had a 1950 Ford coupe. I bought it from a local old guy for $900 using one of those credit card checks. I can vividly remember limping it home from his house in Oklahoma City to my apartment in Norman, OK. The car was pretty much all original and featured a worn out flathead Ford and a broken tranny. The same month I bought the car, one of the “hot rod” magazines ran a tech article lauding the ease in which a small block chevy and a Turbo 350 tranny could be installed in a shoebox Ford using some of their advertiser’s parts… of course.

I took the bait, bought the parts, and got to work. What took the pro’s in the article two days to complete, took me three months, countless calls to my pop’s pals, ten bloodied knuckles, and more frustration that I even dare to remember. Adding insult to injury, the finished product wasn’t anything that I would show off to anybody. My confidence was shot. Destroyed. Fucked.

It was also a turning point in my publishing career. I decided that from that point on and given the opportunity, I would never “grease the pig” in a tech article. Instead, I’d be realistic and brutally honest – no matter how painful my obvious lack of talent would be for the reader. Old cars, after all, aren’t just for the mechanically inclined. Given the proper dedication and adequate patience, anyone can turn a wrench. Righty tighty. Lefty Loosey.

Fifteen years later and there I was staring at (to my eyes) one of the most perfect model-a coupes ever built. The Tardel/Cochran coupe has always ran hard, but the original and rebuilt Stromberg 97 carbs leaked considerably and the stains on my PM-7 intake were starting to wear on me. The solution was simple. I called up Clive over at Stromberg and ordered a pair of brand new Stromberg 97 carbs.

Now, my confidence has grown since the early days with the shoebox. Through the years, I learned basic mechanic skills simply through trial and error and… tons of patience. I even built a car (with tons of help) by graduation. But I put the Tardel/Cochran coupe on a pedestal. It was built by my best friend and for all intents and purposes, it’s not my car. It’s our car. When I gap the plugs, I think about Keith – Would he set this gap? Maybe I should call. When I had distributor issues, it was the same… Paranoia. Self doubt. I began relying too much on others and not using my own brain and thought process. I simply loved the car too much to consider risking it with my own talent.

Again, I’ve gotten better in time and I’ve learned a ton while picking up the experience. Keith still answers all of my questions patiently, but he is pretty insistent.

“You can do it. Just chill out and think about it.”

I admit it. Even though replacing a couple of carbs on a flathead motor is incredibly remedial, I was nervous. I didn’t want to screw up a perfectly running car and endure the ensuing frustration that would follow. I thought about waiting for Keith to come to Austin and then making him do it, but he would have none of it. At Bonneville, he told me I was on my own.

Out of options, I got to work. Following a great little article written by Tommy, I set up the carbs and got them synced. The car fired right up and things seemed glorious until I took a test drive. A lean pop out of the exhaust appeared on deceleration and the idle became inconsistent at best. The plugs were black. Nothing made sense.

I followed up problems by trying various different jet sizes hoping sense would come. It never did. I put bigger jets in the carbs and the plugs would look lean. I’d go smaller and the plugs would get black. I felt incredibly small and stupid. What in the hell was I screwing up?

I finally threw in the towel and gave Keith a call, but the complications were too much to deal with over the phone. He suggested I let Clive, Max, and the Stromberg folks take a crack at it. I did and sent back my carbs.

As it turns out, I wasn’t crazy and I hadn’t completely fumbled the install. Not completely, anyhow… The idle mixture screws on one of the carbs had been damaged during shipping. Someone smarter than me would have checked them before the install, but I apparently needed to learn that lesson for myself. Stromberg was great – Max fixed the carbs up and sent them right back to me.

A couple of days ago I finally had time to put the carbs back on my well stained PM-7. Again, I followed Tommy’s article and got the carbs synced and running smoothly. The back up drive went well – the little coupe roared and the plugs looked perfect.

After my drive, I went back in the office and thought about the whole process. Sure, someone with a little more gusto than me would have been smart enough to check the idle circuits, but I learned that lesson and next time I’ll know. There is something incredibly gratifying when frustration turns over to satisfaction.

Still reveling in my accomplishment, I went out to the shop to start the car again and hear it run. I reached in through the driver’s side door and hit the key failing to check and see if it was in neutral first. The car started up in gear and ran right into and over a large metal trash can I had parked in front before it stalled. Amazingly, nothing was hurt other than the trash can.

Still a hack.