Calling all charging system guru's!

[moonshine runner]

Originally Posted by billwill

You bought a six vot regular you have to ajust if you have a eiht volt battery

Howdy Bill,

I replaced the 8V with a new 6V battery. So, new 6V regulator & 6V battery.

Kevin

[40cpe]

Maybe the ballast designed for the 8V battery gives too little voltage to the coil.
I would find a way to check the voltage at the coil.

[ford38v8]

Bill, your 8v had a resistor in the system to reduce voltage to the coil, just as the stock 6v system has, but now back to the 6v, you need to take away that additional resistance. Look under the dash above the steering columb to discocver if you have the original ballast resistor hooked up, and remove whatever additional resistor you find. This will result in the correct voltage to your coil of aomewhere from 3 1/2v to 4v. You cannot use a digital voltmeter on your car. Use an analog voltmeter, and check voltage goint to the coil.

When you get this done, you'll start and run with no buccking around!

[Brendan]

also check all your grounds. also the size of your battery cables. the lower the voltage the higher the resistance.

[moonshine runner]

Alan,

I never thought about the digital multi meter. Thank you for that information!.
I will look for a resistor, but I have never seen one on this car. I know that years ago people used to use an 8V battery to make the car start easier and I assume that is the reason mine had an 8V in it.

I am also wondering if the points are getting enough voltage to fire properly because the car takes forever to start now.

It seems that other than the headlights dimming and the ammeter hand going over to discharge at idle, the car always started fine before I changed the regulator and battery.

So, I am not sure where to go from here, but I will look for a resistor, and I may end up replacing the coil to see if by chance the 8V battery may have ruined it.

I put new battery cables on the car recently as previously mentioned however the one that runs from the positive post to the firewall is like the original braded cable, and the one that runs to the solenoid is a regular cable.

Kevin

[ford38v8]

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Kevin, you are correct, the points are not getting the juice now, and the reason they aren't is that the resistor to reduce from 8v to 4v is now reducing from 6v to 2v. Get rid of the extra resistor in your system and you should be OK. Follow the hot lead from your solenoid all the way through to the coil, and bypass any resistor you find except the original Ford ballast resistor on the dash above the steering column. There should not be another resistor anywhere in your Ford, so just rip it out altogether.

If in fact there is no extra resistor and your coil saw additional voltage from the 8v battery, then perhaps as you suggested, it may be damaged now and will require rebuilding. Be sure of the resistor situation before jumping to that conclusion, however. A good and simple test of the coil and the voltage that serves it is to pull a spark plug wire and hold it near a head bolt:
Soft yellow spark = poor,
Snappy blue spark = good.

[moonshine runner]

Thanks Alan!

I will definitely be checking for an extra resistor, and as you mentioned on the spark plug wire on a head bolt to check the spark, I have seen my dad do that many times when we were kids.

I am looking on Ebay to see if I can pick up an analog voltmeter.

Kevin

[Old Henry]

Kevin, I use a digital multi-meter on my car all the time and it works fine. It does do that same weird thing you described - showing random fluctuating readings when it's not hooked up to anything - but as soon as it's hooked up it works and reads just fine. I always wondered why it did that weird thing but didn't care cause it still worked fine. I get some comfort knowing that yours does the same weird thing. Bet yours will work fine too if you just hook it up and see. Did you try it?

Did you check the voltage at the coil like Alan recommended? If so, and it was what he recommended, then you don't have too much or too little resistance and you can stop looking for a resistor problem to fix.

There are several different tests for coils. Frankly, all of my coils that I suspected of being bad and causing my problems never actually turned out to be bad nor be causing any problem. But, if you want to check yours here is the resistance ranges for the two circuits in them:



The spark plug test is a good one too although it doesn't isolate the coil to test it. Problems with spark at the plug could be coil, points, condenser, rotor, or wires. Another test of the coil by itself is to disconnect the two wires that go from the coil to the distributor, connect a jumper wire to the distributor side of the coil and a known good spark plug wire to the high voltage output. Then hold the other end of the spark plug wire close to a head bolt while tapping the end of the jumper wire on another head bolt. That tapping duplicates the switching action of the points to turn the coil on and off and you should see spark on the end of the sparkplug wire.

[BILL WZOREK]

Old Henry:

Just a quick question::
In the pictures of checking the coil
What is the correct Name / term of the symbol in the circle ??

[Old Henry]

Originally Posted by BILL WZOREK

Old Henry:

Just a quick question::
In the pictures of checking the coil
What is the correct Name / term of the symbol in the circle ??

Omega, the 24th and last letter of the Greek alphabet meaning the ending, the last of anything.

In schematics it's used to indicate Ohms.

[moonshine runner]

Saturday evening update:

Ok, Alan and Craig. The car just isn't getting enough fire to start and run. I put a charge on the battery this afternoon and it finally fired and ran "ok", and I shut it off and restarted it and it started ok.

Shut it off and tried to restart it and it just cranked and cranked because it's not getting enough fire.

I traced wiring between the solenoid and coil and there is NO resistor. There also is no resistor under the dash near the steering column.

I had an extra coil in my parts bin that I've had for many years (don't know if it's any good or not), so I moved the wires over to it and no difference.

I then started looking at wiring, checking continuity and had one wire that I replaced because it had 2 breaks in it. This wire comes off the starter cable side of the solenoid and goes to the positive side of the coil.

Still did not make any difference. I did try using my digital multi-meter again, but the numbers still continued to jump around when testing just as they do without touching the leads to anything.

The charging system is simple but can make a person pull their hair out! I can only think of 3 possible things that could be wrong at this point.

1. Bad coil.
2. Bad condenser.
3. Burnt Points.

As I mentioned earlier up this post, the car started and ran great before I decided to replace the 8V battery with a 6V battery, and voltage regulator. I can't believe the points could be bad.

[Old Henry]

Way too often my ignition problems have ended up being the simple little $10 condenser. I change that and things are better (if it wasn't the only problem) or perfect (if it was). It's an easy cheap try.

[moonshine runner]

I may go that route. There isn't many things left that could be wrong!!!

Kevin

[e-tek]

I went through this 6V BS run-around pecker-pulling for about 6 years with my 46 MErc truck until FINALLY, last year, I switched over to a 12V system. It took about 2 hours - most of that building a little bracket strap to go over the new 12V Alternator. Now I have a truck that starts SO FAST it scares people! Even below freezing now it fires off in no time. The 12V bulbs burn BRIGHT as HID's and the aftermarket turn-signal system now works like it should.

6V systems are for museums...

[40cpe]

Originally Posted by moonshine runner

I may go that route. There isn't many things left that could be wrong!!!

Kevin

Sooner or later you are going to have to measure your voltage at the coil.

[ford38v8]

I have a really dumb question: What year model are we talking about here, and with what distributor? No resistor on the inner dash sounds like post war? Your avatar car? OK, I/we should have asked this long ago, but what matters now is to get a 6v coil and resistor installed, or one with an internal resistor.

Now, the second wire from the coil to solenoid is a non-stock addition intended to increase coil voltage during starting. That wire must be removed now, as it drains coil voltage after the solenoid release. This is not a bad idea, but the installation in this manner is wrong thinking.

[moonshine runner]

Good morning all.

First I want to say a big Thank You for all who have weighed in to help with this issue.

Alan, yes sir my car is postwar. It's a 47 Super Deluxe. 40cpe, I definitely want to measure the voltage but since my multi-meter jumps around and never settles down where I can get a reading, I've got to figure out another way.

When I bought my car, it had an 8 VOLT battery in it for easy starting, just as many people did way back when.

I only changed the battery and regulator because I was getting erratic readings on the needle, and the headlights got so dim at idle, and the needle went over into discharge.

I didn't think about that non-stock wire Alan, I just replaced it because it had some bad places in it. I will remove it today.

Also, as mentioned I had an old coil in my parts bin that I decided to try last night but I don't know if it's any good or not.

The coil was wired wrong for a positive ground. They had the points going to the - side instead of the + side so I rotated the coil and replaced the wires.

I know that the distributor is new, so I am thinking there isn't much else left!

Alan, not questioning what you said at all, but just wondering. If I put a resistor in the new back to 6 Volt system, won't it reduce the voltage like it's doing now?

Today I am going to try to locate a new coil and condenser and give that a try.

Thanks again everyone, I really appreciate your input!

Kevin

[Old Henry]

Here's the Radio Shack multimeter I use that works fine.



It's available here: http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...ductId=2103176# Or at Fron-Tronics in Joplin (5.7 miles) or Designs Unlimited in Carthage (8.4 miles).

One thing unique about this one is that it will measure capacitance so that I can check my condensers.

[moonshine runner]

Update:

Ok, here's what was causing all my issues. Bad coil! I also removed the secondary "non-stock" wire that ran from the solenoid to the coil.

Condenser was good. Now the car starts and runs great. No more bucking when the accelerator is applied.

So, once again, I just want to say a BIG THANK YOU to all who helped out with suggestions and direction.

A special THANK YOU to Craig and Alan. I hope I can return the favor of helping you all with an issue one day.

Kevin

[ford38v8]

Kevin, Yes, a resistor will lower the voltage going to the coil. A 6 volt coil without a resistor will burn the points and overheat itself, cutting short it's own life expectancy. All 6v coils require a resistor, the old ones externally, the newer ones internally. I know you want to get running as soon as possible, and I don't know the degree of originality you prefer, so you can get a modern coil today (likely with an internal resistor: ASK!), and/or send an original coil to Skip Haney in Florida to have it rebuilt. An original Ford coil should have a resistor mounted next to it at the engine mount, not on the dash (firewall) as I epreviously advised. Do not consider an NOS coil to be preferable for anything but to be rebuilt, as they age on the shelf just as they age on the car. The best resistors are the old Ford ballast resistors: Unlike the new ones, the original Ford resistors last forever. Skip will advise on a compatible condenser to use with the coil he rebuilds.

An analog voltmeter would be required for any testing while the engine is running, as the ignition static you would hear in a radio will also affect a digital device. Old Henry will tell you that anything he does with his digital is while the engine is off. You can perform the voltage tests as previously advised, but not with the engine running. The test at the coil will require the engine to turn over to open the points, and to close the points. A full 6v or slightly less should be the reading while points are open, and just under 4v when points are closed. Much less than these readings would indicate resistance in the system that can be traced down to be corrected.

Those who tell you to convert to 12v have themselves given up on the requirements of 6v, those requirements being good heavy wiring with little or no resistance at the connections. They sometimes aren't aware that 6v requires heavier wires and cables than does 12v, and tend to replace cables with new 12v cables, thereby creating their own problems. To each their own, but I'm sure you understand even at this point, that modifications may temporarily mask over old problems, but bring a whole new set of problems of theiir own.