Brodhead Pietenpol Association

Original Posted By: "John McNarry"
Subject: Pietenpol-List: Model A MusicWe breathed life into that old Model A today !! Someone said it probably hasn't ran since before I was born, and they may very well have been right. It was quite a chore to get it going the first time. We chocked the wheels, and tied the tail skid to the rear bumper of Doug's truck. Doug was the first one to prop it, untill he got tired, then it was Mike's turn, then Billy's turn, and this went on in shifts for about 45 minutes, priming, and using little wiffs of starter fluid. Hand propping is quite a chore, let alone the danger of getting all wound up in the prop of a running engine. Finally, Billy was hard at it, when she finally hit on 3 or 4 cylinders. I was in the cockpit the whole time, with my hand on the throttle and the mag switch. The short 5" exhaust stacks are on the left side of the engine, and on those first few sputters, she spit fuel and oil in my face!! (Windshield is not on it yet) After that, I kinda leaned to the right a little bit. Three of four more tries, with additional primmer, and she spit and sputtered, and caughed up some more stuff, and smoothed out at just under 1000 rpm. SWEET SWEET LOUD music to my ears !! I called off the oil pressure, and it finally pegged the 10 psi oil gage I have in it. When the throttle was advanced a little bit, she quit. We put water in the radiator, and went thur the same ritual, and could only get it to run on the prime, but no more...just needs some adjustments on the carb, and the sun wouldn't wait for us to get that done. Try her again tomorrow. But hey...THE OL' MODEL A ENGINE IS RUNNING !!!!!!Smiling Chuck________________________________________________________________________________

Original Posted By:
Chuck, Sure sounds good eh! Are you going to keep that oil pressure gauge in there? I took the onein my Model AA truck out. It scares me too much. The A oiling system is nota pressure system but but a splash and gravity system even with the mods itwill likely run very low on pressure as the oil gets hotter. I have seenolder cars with a two line gauge that shows that the oil is flowing. What carb are you using? Mags and timing? I have spent some timewondering if the exhaust system with the short stacks affects theperformance by breathing back on valve overlap. I hope you can get it to run as well as an A can. I can sometimes startmy truck by pulling it though (hand cranking) with switch off, choke fullon, for two revolutions and then turning on the switch and moving the sparkadvance lever. It fires right off with out the starter. The original Fordcarbs have an adjustable Idle jet operated by turning the choke rod. Do youstill have that feature?John----- Original Message -----

Original Posted By: AWMACK(at)aol.com
Subject: Re: Pietenpol-List: Model A MusicIn a message dated 11/19/00 9:53:46 AM Central Standard Time, jmcnarry(at)techplus.com writes:>I'm going to keep an oil gage in there, for awhile, at least. During early engine runs, I just have to know what's going on with the oil pump. >We're using the Model B carb (per plans), it has the float hinge perpendicular to the Model A carb float, so it won't bounce quite as much on rough fields. The exhaust stacks (as well as the rest of the plane) are 'per plans', and have worked well for over 70 years. Bernard Pietenpol already did all the exeprimenting, and came up with a very good design. I firmly believe that "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". The mag is an industrial Waco mag, and is 28 advanced, non adjustable. Shouldn't be any problems here.>Right now, we don't have the choke butterfly in the carb, and the carb main jet is only ground adjustable.Chuck GantzerWichita KS________________________________________________________________________________