Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Kelly
I am theorizing but I think the divers bell type dissy was adding to the erratic ignition issues. With the squat coil sitting on top of the dissy , it is in a terrible position, subject to the heat from the radiator . With the improved crab dissy setup , they located the coil away from the hot environment.
When I had the little 1941 11D truck , I was amazed at how it would start from cold on a almost dead flat battery, the motor would be barely turning over, but it would fire and start . The trouble appeared after the resistor had heated up , I used to stop on the roadside and by pass the resistor with a wire link , this bodge fix got me home more than once.
After fiddling around , I discovered that the Voltage reg. was set rather too high , lowering the Voltage setting really improved the ignition system reliability . lower Volts = less Current through that resistor and less heat.
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Hi Mike,
That makes a lot of sense, Ford moving the coil from the divers bell distributor to above the block with the advent of the crab distributor. It has to be a lot cooler up there.
Your bypassing the resistor to start a hot engine is interesting too. I hadn't heard of that before but reading some of the info on hot rod and Ford Flathead V8 websites, that is not an uncommon fix/modification for improving the hot starting of these engines. Some even rig a permanent bypass switch to easily enable this function. All good I guess as long as you return the switch to the non-bypassed position after it starts!
Cheers,