Running Down a Chicken

Today, Liz & I ran over a chicken.

As you might remember from the wedding, the Model A brakes were very poor.  They could bring the car to a stop on a totally flat plane, but any kind of incline or reasonable speed would result in exceptionally poor deceleration. It got to the point where even I had had enough of panic stops.  So, the Model A went up on blocks for a brake job.

It took much longer than I was planning, and included several long stretches of doing nothing -- including one where I was in the UK for a month.  But, with the help of the Moon on A club and a guy in California who rebuilt the backing plates, attached my old hubs to new cast iron drums, and turned the new drums -- the Model A can now stop!  It is truly a wonderful thing to be able to stop your car when driving on the road.

Getting them dialed in just right has taken quite a bit of trial and error.  It's a complicated system of mechanical components, and any slop can quickly compound.  In an 80+ year old car, there can be a lot of wear.  Many of the worn components were replaced, but there are still a few bushings that I haven't gotten around to yet, so some monkeying was required to get desired performance.  Thus, many drives around the block to get everything right.

But now, everything was pretty close to right.  It was time to venture a bit farther away from the safety of the garage, but not too far away as I also recently had an electrical episode (a fuseholder burned up, resulting in zero electricity).

We took a cruise to the west of Snohomish through what is a large flood plain & a hill sticking out of the flood plain.  Coming around a blind corner (marked in red below), there was a chicken standing in the middle of our lane.  The brakes work pretty good, but "we was cruisin'", and Model A tires are basically bicycle tires so even when they are fully locked up you really don't stop that quickly.  Liz & I both went "Aaaaaahhh!!!!" and the chicken saw us and tried to outrun us.  Chickens are not fast, so we quickly closed the distance.  The chicken disappeared, and we both held our breath as the Model A soared over the chicken.
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Then, in the rear view mirror -- A NOT DEAD CHICKEN!  The chicken must've been sufficiently short that it was not cleaned out by the Model A undercarriage.  That chicken will have a heck of a story for its chicken friends.  The view out the windshield of an 80 year old car of a chicken trying to outrun you is hilarious.  It really looked like it should have been part of Chicken Run.