Mark Hayward Is My Hero

Today I woke up, took a shower and ate breakfast, ordered my new prop case, went to the dog park, had lunch, worked on the Model A Ford, had dinner, and made cookies. That’s almost the full spectrum of my life, and it was all packed into one day. I didn’t realize until I wrote this just now that the different activities were delineated by meals. If I weren’t so tired I would have to have another meal and start on a new chapter in life. Maybe as a Sumo wrestler….

The goal with the Model A today was to take off the radiator so I can take it in to a professional to have it cleaned. Last time I drove the car the radiator boiled over, and when I took off one of the water pipes it was LOADED with nasty gunk, so the radiator has to be filthy too. Taking the radiator off isn’t an insurmountable task but there are a bunch of things you have to do before you even get to the radiator. First you take off a couple of water pipes, then unhook the wires for the headlights and the horn (which run through the radiator housing), take off the hood, and THEN you can remove the radiator. Unfortunately I only got as far as the hood. I got everything unscrewed and I realized that actually lifting the hood off (and not messing it up) was either a two-person job, or I didn’t know how to do it by myself. Either way, I needed help. Since my neighbor Todd wasn’t home, the radiator will just have to wait. What’s one more day after being in storage for 15 years?

In the morning I perform at the Carmel Farmer’s Market, and then at the Rocky Ripple festival… if it doesn’t rain. I’m anticipating a rain-out, but we’ll see.

I finally got back to working on my family’s 1930 Model A Ford yesterday.

This is the best picture I have of it at the moment, since I haven’t gotten to go on a real drive in it yet. I’ve taken it out a couple of times, but each time a mechanical problem has stopped me before I got all the way around the block. Last time the radiator boiled over.

So yesterday I drained the radiator again, and took off the pipe at the bottom where the fluid goes back into the radiator from the engine. I took it off to do a “flow check” to see if the radiator is clogged with funk. Although I haven’t done the check yet, I don’t see how it could possibly NOT be clogged after looking at the inside of that pipe. Yeesh. There was SO much gunk in there. I chipped it out with a screwdriver, and got an astonishingly large plie. After I eat a little food, I’m going to go back out to finish the job.

PS: It only sounds like I know what I’m talking about. I couldn’t have done it without my friend Devin. He pointed me to Snyder’s Antique Auto Parts and to a great how-to book.