I took my deuce and C1 howitzer out to the threshermans reunion this weekend. I drove them from Shilo for a distance of 74 kms, and the truck just wanted to go faster. I had to keep backing off the throttle as I wasn't happy with the vibration at 56mph. Ahhh, for the blissfull days where the vibration didn't bother me.
Anyway, each day there is a parade and we hook up all the guns with their towing trucks, and go once around the track. All the tractors and horse teams do the same. So yesterday, with someone else driving my deuce, it started crapping out right on from of the stands. Paul was able to get it started, it would rumble and backfire, maybe give a spurt of power, then die. He finally made it past the reviewing stand, and I pulled up beside him and told him just to pull over. The museum there has a big old tractor just for recovery.
Paul at first thought it was out of fuel.....I knew that wasn't the case, besides, when a deuce runs out of fuel, it just quits. I though maybe someone messed with the fuel, so today brought out 4 jerry cans of fresh premium along with some tools and spare parts.
First I pulled the fuel line to the carb and turned on the engine. Lots of fuel and nice and clean. I moved on to the distributor and though I might have seen a couple of minor cracks. I installed the new cap and cover quickly, and that was not the problem. So before I moved to the other fender to replace the carb, I decided to replace the resister, coil and condenser. Once they were out I decided to replace the condenser for the contact points as well. Put it all together, eyeballed the point gap, closed the distributor, and she ran like a top. Failing condenser...who would have thought? The engine was a fresh rebuild back in 1980.
She went through the parade today with no issues (in fact all 5 vehicles and guns did). Tomorrow they have to do it one more time, then tear down and on Monday we retrieve everything back to Shilo and I'll drive the deuce and gun home Monday night.
One thing with fuel on a deuce, it is easy to know how much you need and how much you have. Every time the odometer clicks another mile, you have used another liter.
Photos later.
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