See the new article here:
https://modeltfordfix.com/adjusting-the-model-t-ford-transmission-and-clutch/
Discuss below by hitting the “Reply” button.
EXCELLENT ARTICLE! I have found the relationship between the parking brake lever, clutch, low gear, and neutral to be very frustrating. Too many inter-related moving parts affected by wear and replacement parts with tolerances that differ from factory. This is the best article I have seen on the subject and I wish I had found it three months ago.
I need that information. That’s easier to understand than some of the other institutions for neutral free adjustment. tomorrow I am going to work on neutral free in my new to me 26 coupe. Now it’s not free at all.
Great and timely article as I need to make adjustments on my transmission and free neutral. Can I print this article to take out to the shop as a guide or is protected by copyrights?
Something I found, but did not see in the article - If you disconnect the parking brakes the cam on the control lever will not engage. At least that is how mine was, and it drove me crazy because I did not know the parking brakes had to be hooked up in order to adjust the neutral.
A question on “free neutral”. Is free neutral the space on the clutch pedal between low and high when you the control lever is full forward?
You are free to print it for your own use. That does not constitute copy right infringement.
You are correct sir.
Great article, really helpful in understanding a confusing procedure. I only wish the photos were larger and a little clearer. On my computer they take up less than 1/3 of the screen. My eyes are kind of tired and need all the help they can get. Thanks!
Does your computer have “zoom”? With mine, I can put the page I want on the screen and go to the top right where there are three dots like this … I click on the three dots and the third item down is zoom. I can click that to make the page larger or smaller. It gets plenty big for even my eyes at 250% !
No dots like that. I can change the display resolution, but that’s a pain and doesn’t really solve the problem. The issue seems to be formatting of the page. The article text and photos are mostly to the left side of he page, it does not take up the full page. Since the photos are small, they are scrunched down even further.
Don’t get me wrong, its a great article (as are all of them), I’m very grateful for it. I think its just a formatting or page layout issue. It could probably be easily fixed by the webmaster and make viewing easier for everyone. Here is a screen shot of what I see. It takes up just a little more than half of the page.
You don’t need to adjust your transmission, you need to adjust your computer!
Here is another method that works on mine. Open the article, have your cursor anywhere over it, hold down the “control” button on the bottom left of your keyboard and tap the “+” sign about a dozen times, then see how large the picture is! (You have to hold down the “shift” key when tapping the +, but you probably knew that already)
If that does not work, and you have Google Chrome, try this:
Zoom in or out on your current page
On your computer, open Chrome.
At the top right, click More .
Next to “Zoom,” choose the zoom options you want: Make everything larger: Click Zoom in . Make everything smaller: Click Zoom out . Use full-screen mode: Click Full screen .
If that does not work put “how to zoom pc” into Google search along with your brousing system name.
I have never seen a system that would not zoom, and do it easily. But it is only easy if you know how!
From some web page I lost:
Sometimes web pages are a little too big or too small and it would be nice to be able to zoom out or in to make the page easier to read. Fortunately, your browser has a few keyboard shortcuts to remedy those problems.
In order to zoom in, you just press control (Windows) or command (Mac) and the + key. (Technically you’re pressing the = key because you’d need to press shift to make a plus, but thinking of it as the + key makes more sense since it’s zooming you in.) To zoom out, press control/command -, and press control/command 0 to set things back to normal. This can be really handy on high res screens, screens that are too far away, or sites that just make everything ridiculously big and you don’t want to be scrolling everywhere just to navigate.
Thanks Tom. The CTRL+ works well on my computer. On my Blackberry its a different story. Still, it would be nice if the formatting/layout could be improved. But I can deal with it.
This is interesting because the transmission article is the first one where I used the captioning feature on the photos. While I like the captions, what happens is the caption reduces the amount of space allocated to the photo. Could I get you to take a look at one of the earlier articles? Maybe I need to go back to that style of photo and include the caption in the text.
I don’t have a Blackberry any more so I don’t have a way to look at how that looks. I do know that when I had a Blackberry it was easy to zoom in or out using the side scroll buttons or the track mouse ball.
Here is a screen capture of the spark plug article (using a PC with IE 11. It seems to have the same issue. I checked with my Blackberry and it displays full screen (as full as the tiny Blackberry screen is!).
Good information. I have to make the adjustments on my 26 coupe tomorrow.
Hi Royce - I’m going to be dragging the car in high gear sometime soon to break the pistons loose. I noticed the rear wheels turn freely with the parking brake lever full forward and the clutch out. Is that telling me the band is loose? Mechanical energy should be transferred from the rear wheels to the pistons through the bands, right?
If the rear wheels are turning and the engine is not turning then the clutch is slipping.
Hi Royce -
I’m reading through your article and thinking about going through the process. But I’ve installed Rocky Mountain brakes and the equalizer appartatus bottoms out on the transmission housing prohibiting me from getting the parking brake lever to the seat. It’s a good 4 - 5" from the seat.
I’ve been contemplating biting the bullet and removing the RM equalizer and the Ruckstell shift lever to get a proper adjustment although the motor and transmission were overhauled by BJ Miller and the crew so I doubt the bands need much adjusting if at all. Would you go back to square one if it were you? I don’t want to drag the car unless I’m sure it’s in high and the clutch isn’t slipping.
Ron’s machine shop built two of the engines in my T’s. They do great work.
I had the same issue as you, I was able to make it clear and then was able to adjust everything. You might want to look at the article on installing Rocky Mountain brakes.