job. After asking lots of questions on various forums I fiddled through the inspection plate until I had the new band fitted. The Tourer had a really bad oil leak from the gearbox. There’s a saying about Model Ts, ‘If there are no oil leaks it’s because there is no oil in it,’ so I expected some drips but this needed immediate attention. The top had to come off the gearbox so that I could replace the cork gasket. Unfortunately, despite me stuffing rags around the gear shafts, a nut fell down into the bottom of the ‘box. That meant the engine and ‘box had to come out and be turned upside down; after a couple of taps with a hammer, I heard a click, and the missing nut appeared where I could fish it out.” Once Geoffrey had those problems sorted, his only other major issue was learning how to drive a car that was designed before vehicle controls became standardised to the arrangement of pedals and levers with which we are all familiar today. The Model T has three pedals but neither of them is the clutch... or the accelerator! There’s a lever next to the door which, as you might have guessed is the handbrake but it’s also the clutch…well, almost. Then there’s the big round thing in front you; that’s the


steering wheel. The accelerator is the lever on the left hand side of the steering column, accompanied by an advance/retard lever for the ignition timing. For the experienced driver, there’s a fuel mixture adjustment knob in the dashboard, beside the ammeter. There’s no oil pressure gauge because there’s no oil pump, and the water temperature is gauged by the amount of steam coming from the radiator. That’s the theory bit; now over to Geoffrey for the practical, “When you put your foot on the pedal on the left you are engaging low gear. When it’s rolling and up to about 10mph you take your foot off the pedal and push the handbrake lever forward to release the drive band on low gear and engage direct drive to the top gear. The middle pedal engages reverse, and the right pedal works a transmission brake band. Coming up to a junction requires a bit of forward planning. I took it out into a field and practiced for the afternoon before I took it onto the road. As you drive along you have to listen to the engine; it tells you what to do. As you come to a hill your ear tells you to retard the timing and find a balance with the throttle. In my early trips, I overheated it a few times because I had the ignition too far advanced. Every trip is a lesson.” At the end of my visit Geoffrey offered me the chance to fulfil one of my ambitions; to take a jaunt around the back lanes in the passenger’s seat of a Model T. As I admired Geoffrey’s mastery of the controls and his confidence with the one hundred year old technology I began to whistle the Laurel and Hardy tune, remembering how they managed to drive into a bandsaw and cut their Model T in half. Geoffrey made sure that we didn’t end up in a fine mess!


Did I enjoy my trip? I certainly did! 20 JULY/AUGUST 2021 call 01295 404099 to advertise or email advertising@vintagescene.co.uk


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