Can you daily drive a barn find Model A Ford?

This is a story of success, failure, then success, again.

Relegated to a barn for 45-plus years, this barn find 1930 Ford Model A finally saw the light of day. Even more, this old girl is put back into daily use as a commuter to work. The goal was simple - prove once and for all that you can drive a 90 year old car to work as your daily commuter.

I do wish it were that simple. The years of neglect were not washed away by Patina Sauce as the ghosts of farmer's past did rear their ugly head. The poor Coupe didn't make it past the first two days in 100 degree weather in Texas heat and fried the headgasket, but did get me home.

Ultimately, it took a new high compression head and head gasket from Speedway Motors and a little elbow grease from me, my dad and my son to get the Model A back on the street. So the little A is enjoying its life again.

Thanks for watching.

#barnfinds #ford #classiccars

[antonioarmijo]

The car is cool but what's better than that car, is watching three generations of Fleischman's working on it together. My favorite video by far.

[pjcsmo]

Thanks for the great video - at age 77 I’m still regularly driving the ‘30 Model A I bought for $10 in 1960. Rebuilding the engine with my dad in 1964 is one of the best memories….

[sergeantmasson]

Those Model A cars were damn near indestructible.

[MarkHelka]

Thank you for keeping an old model lady running

[dennisd]

You took your father back to his youthful days!

[shawnn]

As a Model A owner myself, it's nice to see family spending time together to keep the old girl running.

[ModelARickLasCruces]

Nice job! I've had my 1931 Tudor for 55 years now and I still enjoy every drive!

[jamesonpace]

Very cool 3 generation effort. Nicely done....

[darwinskeeper]

I mostly watch your channel for the EV content, but this may be my favorite video on Diss Repair. Ford's Model A is just so appealing.

[aaronstephen]

Hats off to you for daily driving a Model A!
I drive my 1959 ford anglia to work once a week, it rarely misses a beat.
The engine is essentially a 1.2L version of the model A engine.

[dennisd]

That speedway head is the cat's pajamas. Now fetch me some moonshine. Yea see?

[cobracharmer]

Love it! Even the tail lights look like the Pepsi Cola logo, my favorite 🍺🫲🏻😀

[darylwatson]

I have a 30 Coupe and live in Amarillo. Just randomly started watching the video mid way through and everything looked really familiar to me as you drove the car to work. Small world !

[raymondsmith]

My grand dad worked on these kind of cars. He would use the rope trick to pop the head loose then to lift it off easer he made a handle about 12 inches long off an old tool box that had legs that had large holes the size of the spark plugs. That you sat it on top of the head and snugged down two old spark plugs through the holes in the handle and one man could then lift the head off and carry it around like a suitcase. Those old car guys were great at coming up with home made tools to get things done easer and faster. But even without a handle you had that head off in less time than it would take to remove all the stuff you would have to take off a 2020 cars engine just to get to the head to remove it.
.

[danontherun]

I believe the next couple of generations aren't going to waste space even for cars updated to urban driving. Kids are already tossing antique furniture and all our cool junk. We're running out of parts and mechanics and governments are pushing to wipe them (and us) out. My two millennial sons have zero interest even in the performance street cars they helped me build let alone the pair of pre-wars so I just build them to make me happy and drive them as much as possible. Que sera sera.

[lancecorporal]

Ran across this video while looking for something to display on screen #3 while working from home. What a great video and the music was absolutely perfect! Thanks for sharing your adventure!

[davejaques]

Well done, it's great to keep a vintage car on the road, even just for leasure

[garydumbauld]

Depends on what kind of repair the car is in. There are lots of folks here in the Denver area who drive true antiques every day. But—they had a _complete_ rebuild from the ground up; including complete engine tear down and rebuild, complete rewiring, new clutch, transmission rebuild, steering rebuild, brake/running lights replaced with LED bulbs (which run just fine at six volts), new tires and tubes, new brake shoes, etc. The guy down the road now has 72, 000 miles on his 1930 Model A since the rebuild, all at 5000 feet and up in altitude.

[michaellauer]

Cool beans brother. I’ve been a Ford guy my whole life and have similar cars from this video. My Dad was a Ford parts man, as was I until I started flying. It’ been great to do parts inventory work with him (in his retirement job)until just a year ago … he’s 92 and it’s fun that I have a 31 Ford now and my Dad is “A 31”.
Cherish the moments.

[coburnlowman]

While in college I worked in the maintenance department for my work-study program. Soon they figured out that I grown up doing farm repairs. Instead of doing work on campus, they had me fixing all sorts of stuff. Like putting clutches in all sorts of tractors, n the like. The superintendent had a 31 sedan. He picked up a good running wrecked Ford Ranger. We put that 4 cylinder, transmission, and rear end under his A sedan. He didn't wanna drill any new holes in the A anywhere. I made up motor mounts, transmission mounts to bolt into holes already in the model A frame. Can't remember if it was a 4 or five speed, but it worked like a factory unit. He drove it on a regular basis after the swap. It was a good running factory original before, but he wanted it to be more driver friendly. The engine had the A/C compressor, but until I graduated, he hadn't added the A/C.
That was the best time of my life during those years. The Superintendent begged me to get hired on after graduation. Everyone was retiring, and I would have had his job in less than five years. I'd now be retired with full state benefits by now.