At the end of the rope with my 46.

[fordy46]

My 46 does exactly the same thing, I have Skips pumps and coil on it but it still does it on hot days. My fix was to install an electric fuel pump near the tank on a seperate switch. When it does not fire I turn the pump on and get cool gas into the carb and I am on my merry way. This has saved me many hassles. 91 degrees yesterday and after running it for 15 miles it sat for 20 minutes then would not start. Elect pump started it right up. PS if you leave the hood up after shutting it off, it cools a lot quicker

[FlatheadTed]

When you say it gets cool gas into the Carb were does the gas in there thats hot go ?? You have a faulty mechanical pump !! Ford tested these cars in the hottest conditions in deserts .

[v8nut]

I had a problem just like this with my '39 Convertible Sedan. I am running a 6 volt system. I sent the coil to Skip Haney and haven't had a problem since.

[Lawson Cox]

Just my 2¢, but as I spend more and more time on the forums it seems to me that the majority of the problems encountered and discussed here are about MODIFICATIONS FROM ORIGINAL HENRY STUFF. Stick to stock and have less problems. These old cars/trucks ran for years without a lot of the problems discussed here.

[G.M.]

Get Skip to rebuild a stock Ford 6 volt coil and you won't have this problem. He has done over 18.000 old Ford coils, ask anybody that has one. G.M.

[bige386]

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F/H Ted.... I have a electric fuel pump installed back at the tank that I use to prime the carb when needed. 99% of the time I use the original fuel pump. I guess I just need to learn to be patient and wait till my new coil gets here and see how it go's from there. If that doesn't work..........Well I guess Ill just keep on trying to figure it out. My Momma did raise no quitters.: )

[G.M.]

Originally Posted by jimTN

I'll betcha it is the gas you are running. It will boil on a hot day and when you shut the engine down, it perculates, floods the engine and pushes gas back to the tank. If you have a elec pump back near the tank you can pump gas back into the line for the engine fuel pump to pick it up. One of Skips flex lines with a check valve would also be a good addition. Around here you can see the gas foaming in a glass sediment bowl when you shut a hot engine down.

Jim Skip don't make the flex hoses. Bob Shewman [email protected] makes the flex hoses, carb spacers and the 180 degree High flow thermostats. G.M.

[FlatheadTed]

Good on ya ,I like the sound of that .(No quitters) it was the drinking part I was worried about tho .If you go the Skip way this will get you back to the 4/1/2 volt that Ford designed itl Itl give you extended point life .It is the best system .I would make the tube coil a Temporary measure .

Originally Posted by bige386

F/H Ted.... I have a electric fuel pump installed back at the tank that I use to prime the crab when needed. 99% of the time I use the original fuel pump. I guess I just need to learn to be patient and wait till my new coil gets here and see how it go's from there. If that doesn't work..........Well I guess Ill just keep on trying to figure it out. My Momma did raise no quitters.: )

[makemc]

sounds like you are dealing with a lot of monkeying around done by previous owners, 12 volt coil on6 volt sysm. resistor bypassed,..sounds like someone went the wrong way trying to solve the problem...I would set everything back to stock..get the dist. rebuilt by bubbas..get a stock style coil from skip, make sure all connections are tight and you should be good..i had the same problem on my 46, even after doing all this, i could run a jump wire from bat. to coil and it would start right up..finally found i had missed one connection, ign. wire on back of ign. switch..thats been yrs. now ..no problems

[LuckyFordGuy]

I would say that your coil is bad had same problem earlyer this summer new coil startes run like new GOOD LUCK Rog

[George/Maine]

Some of these newer off shore coils may not be as good as older.There are plety of NOS coils on the bay.The round coil may be even better then old ones if you have a later car.The ones that can,t be rebuilt.
The points should be set,good condeser,and us made round coil.
Take the wire out of dist and hold 1/2 from ground.
Now try and start have someone watch the spark,
Should be sharp,sounding,snapping sound. 1/2"
If thats good, start it and look for other reasons for not starting.
Old or new coil still draw about 3 amps.
Think of all the car out there running round coils,ever 1949 to 1955 fords.
The early coils should be rebuilt.

[Tinker]

If a rebuilt coil is used woundn't you want to then wire the resistor in line with the coil then? Wouldn't putting a full 6volts to the coil heat it up faster then a lower volt 3-4v charge? Wouldn't having 6v to coil also burn points faster? Just curious.

[Old Henry]

Before totally junking your coil why don't you test it? It's pretty easy. Here's how:

When you think the coil is not working, like when it wouldn't start for the parade, first of all check for spark at the plugs either with a timing light or removing a plug and see if there's spark. If there's spark, your coil is working and your problem is something else (for me it's always vapor lock and switching the electric pump on gets me on my way.) If you're not getting spark, that could be from several things including a weak coil, bad points, or condenser. You can field test each as follows:

To isolate the coil and test it to see if it's bad or something else, disconnect the low tension wire from it to the distributor and clip a jumper wire to that terminal. Unplug the high tension wire from the coil and replace it with a short spark plug wire kept in the trunk for this test. Turn on the ignition and test for voltage at the battery side of the coil. If there, tap the other end of the jumper wire on a head bolt while holding the end of the spark plug wire near a head bolt to see if it sparks. Tapping the jumper wire duplicates the action of the points and should create a spark at the end of the spark plug wire. My wager would be that your coil is OK. I've impulsively replaced too many coils that never fixed my problems that always turned out to be something else.

If the coil is OK you can test the condenser with the multimeter carried in the trunk for field tests. If your meter will test capacitance remove the wire form the condenser to the distributor and put one test lead on that wire and the other on the condenser body (don't even have to remove the condenser if you don't want to). It should show .20-.30 mfds. If your meter doesn't test capacitance you can use the resistance test that should show ohms climbing rapidly if the condenser is working.

It's not very likely that you won't get spark if both the coil and condenser are working. The only thing left would be spark plugs or wires but they would not all fail at the same time. Even if some were bad the engine would still start. If the car won't start with both of those working it's a gas problem and most likely vapor lock that should be solved immediately by switching your electric pump on.

My 2 cents.

[Old Henry]

A 6 volt coil on your '46 needs a resistor but not having one would not keep it from starting. Over time the points would burn quicker and the coil eventually fail earlier but it wouldn't keep the engine from starting.

Whenever the car won't start you first have to find out whether it's spark or gas. I always start with checking for spark first because it's easier with my timing light. Then, if I have spark I must conclude that I don't have gas. I spent two hours on the side of the road on night checking everything and trying everything to get my car to start just to eventually figure out that it was out of gas.

[Old Henry]

Originally Posted by Tinker

If a rebuilt coil is used woundn't you want to then wire the resistor in line with the coil then? Wouldn't putting a full 6volts to the coil heat it up faster then a lower volt 3-4v charge? Wouldn't having 6v to coil also burn points faster? Just curious.

Yeah. You're right on.

[bige386]

I have a new modern coil coming in the mail. It should be here any day now. I'm thinking pretty seriously about buying a original coil for it. If I do this will I need to hook the Resister back up ? There are a couple of coils on e bay that I have my eye on.

[Old Henry]

Original coil requires a resistor installed thus:

[Tinker]

Originally Posted by bige386

I have a new modern coil coming in the mail. It should be here any day now. I'm thinking pretty seriously about buying a original coil for it. If I do this will I need to hook the Resister back up ? There are a couple of coils on e bay that I have my eye on.

If you buy one off ebay you would still have it rebuilt by skip.

Great car by the way. Hope you don't mind me posting a picture of it from your album. If you do I'll remove this post.

[FlatheadTed]

A 6 volt coil doesn't need a resistor unless it driven by a 12 volt battery ,If Big 386 gets a stock original one from E bay and skip rebuilds it then he needs to run his original resistor under the dash .Any coil testing needs to be done when its hot. A coil can give great spark, then after a hrs running brake down .The coils I rebuild are volt but points don't last as long .

[Old Henry]

Originally Posted by FlatheadTed

A 6 volt coil doesn't need a resistor unless it driven by a 12 volt battery.

Mr. Ford thought they did. He put a resistor in all 46-48 Fords thus:



Or, are you talking about some kind of 6 volt coil that is not the original style? I wouldn't know about those but the original style coil required a resistor.