Submitted by Marvin Mellage.

Have you ever experienced strange or new noises coming from your Model-A?  And if so, how quickly one goes into stages of problem analysis and resolution?  The first stage is, hopefully it will go away and never return again.  The second stage is, will doing something a little different reduce or eliminate it?  The third stage is, if the noise is here to stay will self diagnosis and repair solve it?  And the fourth stage is, who and how many to bring in for problem identification and elimination?

All these phases happened to me not too long ago.  I’d been working on someone’s Model-A trying to get it running after eight plus years of barn storage.  After doing all the necessary corrections to the fluids, fuel, electrical systems, etc. it was ready.  A step on the starter, a pull of the choke, a little gas and the engine came back to life.  It sounded real good considering it had been neglected for so long.  Then the noises started.  There were noticeable cling, bang, clang, ding, etc. noises coming from the motor compartment.  I immediately shut it off and got out for a visual engine compartment inspection. Everything seemed okay.  Once again I started the engine.  Much to my dismay the noises were not only still there, but getting louder and more frequent.  A quick acceleration only worsened the problem.  Once again I shut the engine off and did another inspection, only to find everything as it should be.  I’m standing there in deep thought wondering what’s broken, what needs to come off, can I fix it?

As I was trying to determine what to do next, my wife Linda came into the shop.  Now I was faced with concurrent Model-A problem determination and spouse conversation.  A tough act for me.  Her first words were “what are you doing” and “did you notice”.  I nicely stopped her to get focused back on the engine problem.  Next after watching me for a minute or so, she interrupted to ask me about the things on the shop floor behind the car.  I had not noticed them during my problem determination.  Upon further inspection, the little blackish, oblong things turned out to be pecans in the shell.  She had identified and helped solve the problem.  These pecans were coming out of the exhaust and the cling, clang, bang, ding noises was their hitting the muffler and exhaust pipe on the way out.  After running the engine at different speeds for awhile the noise problem went away.  Out of curiosity we picked up the pecans and had two sandwich bags full. Some pack rat had really been busy during the Model-A’s long storage stay.

Through this experience I realized I had successfully gone through the four stages of Model-A problem analysis and resolution.