23 t touring buzz coils

[pookie55]

Hi to all.. quick question for all the model t gurus out there, First Im the proud new care taker of a 1923 ford T touring car purchase at auction only weeks ago that was supposedly in a southern museum for many,many years. Im really new to the T's..the previous owner say's 1 of the 4 coil box's are bad..after taking them out it looks like maybe 3 of 4 are bad + they had a 12 volt battery in car. I was wondering if i should try to rebuild my own, buy from re-builders on ebay or from maybe Snyder or mac's.what is a fair price?.some of the you-tube video's talk about coils only costing $5 buck at swap-meets. Ive not had a chance to go to any swap-meets yet & id like to get her running know for summer..Any help would be great

[Royce P]

They need to be rebuilt and then adjusted properly using either an original hand cranked coil tester or a Strobe O Spark. There are other quack devices out there that are advertised as being capable for this job but they are simply not.

The coils won't work properly unless they are adjusted properly. It may be that your coils simply need to be adjusted, or they could need complete overhaul. Best bet is to send them to one of the folks who do this. Cost is reasonable and they will be back to you in a week or two. Contact Ron the coil man at:


Ron Patterson
407 Stonegate Drive. Nicholasville, KY 40356.
(859) 881-1677 FAX: 859-881-1793
E-mail:[email protected]

Originally Posted by pookie55

Hi to all.. quick question for all the model t gurus out there, First Im the proud new care taker of a 1923 ford T touring car purchase at auction only weeks ago that was supposedly in a southern museum for many,many years. Im really new to the T's..the previous owner say's 1 of the 4 coil box's are bad..after taking them out it looks like maybe 3 of 4 are bad + they had a 12 volt battery in car. I was wondering if i should try to rebuild my own, buy from re-builders on ebay or from maybe Snyder or mac's.what is a fair price?.some of the you-tube video's talk about coils only costing $5 buck at swap-meets. Ive not had a chance to go to any swap-meets yet & id like to get her running know for summer..Any help would be great

[Farmallcub49]

You can rebuild them yourself or have them redone. If you rebuild yourself, you will need a proper way to adjust them. You cannot do it by ear or with a buzz box coil tester. You will need to have a HCCT, ECCT, or a strobo-spark. I rebuild them and would be more than willing to do them for you. With a good rebuildable core, I charge $40 each plus freight. Feel free to contact me directly at [email protected], if you want to do them yourself and need guidance or if you want me to do them for you.

Thanks

[pookie55]

thanks for the info.

[dumb person]

Excuse me, you can tune coils 'by ear' and they will function perfectly adequately for getting a car going under it's own power.
I can, it's not hard. Anyone that tells you it can't be done is too old and needs to retire.

Start by repairing the coils to a state where the power flows through them much like the wiring diagram says.
Set it buzzing in the coil box by either shorting the timer wire to ground or by turning the engine until it's firing that coil in question.
Now you should have had a spark plug wire connected with a huge plug gap. Like 3/8th of a spark plug gap (this serves as a static spark gap for the safety of your coil). Anything bigger than 1/4 inch gap may stress the coil to short internally. Using a screwdriver with a wooden or plastic handle (blade end contacting the cylinderhead) you can test how far you can draw the spark from the top of the plug where it contacts the spark lead. Adjust the coil until this spark is quite long and strong.
The points should have a flexible contact on the top that allows them to remain
in contact with the lower points even after the points have started to open. i find adjusting this is rarely necessary as long as you have some movement.

Now to check for double spark when running on magneto... as some people worry about (even though the ford manual once said double spark might be desirable) you can try to use a wire suspended very close to the fan as the engine is running, and switch it to magneto. Double sparks are where you see 2 sparks very close together rather than one strong spark. Personally i never had a problem with them and cannot afford to care.

[pookie55]

Sponsored Links (Register now to hide all advertisements)

WOW. thanks for information dumb person, I've only started to test the coils on the bench last week, and found that two of the coils test out at 31,000 to 34,000 ohm's and two are in the 7,000 range.(tested from primary & secondary terminals.)only. I have turned my attention to removing the gas tank and cleaning out all the varnish & rust from tank. (my whole garage smells of varnish!).

[Farmallcub49]

Well, I guess I better retire then. I am 39 years old and can't tune them by ear, must be too old.

As a matter of fact I have tried the tuning by the ear method and when the different coils sounded good to me, I checked them on both a HCCT and Strobo and they both read the coils as double sparking and too low or high of an amperage.

Everyone hears things differently, so maybe I need to get my ears tuned before I tune my coils?

[dumb person]

No, you need to acknowledge that not everyone lives in mcwonderland and can't afford $800 to send coils overseas to get them tuned. Is it possible to get reasonable results using primitive methods. But the note the coils produce isn't much of an indication. The results are what matters.

[Royce P]

Fortunately he lives in Indiana. There's a Model T engine rebuilder in Shandon, Ohio right next to the Indiana border. At Ron's they have an HCCT on the counter that is free for customers to use. I used to go over there all the time when I lived in Cincinnati just to use the HCCT. You can't tune coils by ear, that's just rubbish, sorry. Properly tuned coils often sound wildly different from each other.

[dumb person]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWmxx9Eoc7w

Better suck it up prejudice old man. Bet you don't believe it's possible to fix dead secondaries either.

[pookie55]

very interesting video. i'm not so sure i want to try this idea out..But thanks for the information.