[SEL] OT - was Ford Model T a dual-fuel car?

[Bill Brueck]

I can tell you from personal, second hand (from my father and others), and
fairly extensive experience the story here.  I have owned several Model T's
over the years, and have one complete car now and one potential Model T if I
have enough ambition some day: some assembly required.

The T carb was dead simple, by orders of Henry himself to his engineers.
The story goes that they had several different carb designs, and he kept
going back to them and ordering them to simplify that.  The fuel system is
gravity feed, float in the bowl, single adjustment (no differentiation
between high speed and idle), and updraft (lowers the carb to help make the
gravity feed work).

But a hot Model T would burn kerosene.  While I've not done it myself, there
are ample stories to make one believe it must be true on the earlier models
that had kerosene headlamps that if one ran out of fuel you could dump the
lamps into the fuel tank and make it a few more miles to get fuel.

I have no idea about the ethanol capabilities, but I wouldn’t be a bit
surprised to find that it would run on that, too.

Note that the carb jet adjustment was linked right up to where the operator
could adjust it on the fly.  Usually backed them off 1/4 to 1/2 turn when
starting them, then leaned them back down when things warmed up.

My father said that the fuel in those days was not nearly as consistent and
volatile as the gasoline we had later.  He said sometimes when you used it
to start a fire, for example, you had to put the match right down next to
the fuel to get it to ignite; just throwing a match at the gasoline-soaked
burn pile didn't ignite it.  I guess thus the engines of the day had to be
pretty forgiving of what you fed them.

B²
 
Bill Brueck (brick)
Chatfield, MN, USA
 
Confusion is a higher state of knowledge than ignorance.


-----Original Message-----
From: sel-bounces at lists.stationary-engine.com
[mailto:sel-bounces at lists.stationary-engine.com] On Behalf Of
bill at antique-engines.com
Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2005 7:14 AM
To: The SEL email discussion list
Subject: [SEL] OT - was Ford Model T a dual-fuel car?

I've been told that the Model T had a dual-fuel carb - it was designed to be
switched between gasoline and ethanol.
Anyone know for a fact one way or another?
The carbs I've seen were simple gas only carbs.

Bill
Runnells
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