Page 12 - EACC

Members Garage by Bob Sandercock
Bob Sandercock’s Model A
Purchased May 1975 completed Aug 2025

Towed to Peace River behind my Winnebago It had 4
very bad tires but with luck it made it without incident.

It had a home made fiberglass roof, wood plank running
boards, no interior, Jerry rigged wiring all over the engine,
rusted bright work, incorrect wheels, no back seat floor
board, terribly dented and mangled fenders, one broken
rear spring leaf plus lots of other issues. The car painted
black by hand with a paint brush, however it ran and was a
one owner car from Edson (so the story went) and the en-
gine was recently rebuilt (which proved to be true).

I fixed most of the problems then had a friend body man
do the body work and paint. He estimated two weeks
which turned into two years then I finally told him I was
coming to tow it home. I think he did more work in five
days than in the previous two years and likely wanted to
be paid. I found the original color behind a door latch
when I removed it for fixing.

Even though I have no mechanical training I thought that
if I remember how things came off I would put them back
in the same ordered. It mostly worked.

One example I thought of was how would a farmer do it. I
got a leaf spring from Libby’s cousin on a farm near Ba-
shaw where he had collected several Bennet buggies over
the years. I ground off all of the wear groves, put it all to-
gether again and put it up in place and as I didn’t have a
spring spreader I put a 45 gallon barrel in the back seat,
filled it with water and added everything that had any
weight until the spring finally reached the new shackles.

Bruce Flesher encouraged me to join the EAAC and then
Carl Josephson came to my much needed rescue.
He got the head off which I never would have achieved.
In one cylinder was a pile of seeds as a mouse somehow
got through the tail pipe, muffler and through the small
gap of a valve. Once everything was cleaned up three
valves had to be freed, one so badly stuck that it took two
weeks of spraying with penetrating oil, gently tapping four
or five times a day until it finally released.

Once all back together it still didn’t run well even with a
rebuilt carb. Carl did wonders fixing that problem and
away I went for an inspection at Dawson garage then to
AMA for a license plate. Still a few things to do to tinker
with and upgrade but happy with my amateur restoration

Bob Sandercock

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