T16 restoration starts in earnest

andrew honychurch · #1 06-10-11, 18:39

well I am hoping to get it sorted for a run this weekend. But its been running on temporary electrics and fuel and I need to tighten the tracks etc. So all in all I have a few hours of fiddling to get it going.

RichardT10829 · #2 07-10-11, 10:17

Get some Motorcycle race cans on there the neighbours will love it ! hahahahahahaha.

she ticks over a beaut i reckon you could stand a 50p piece on there with her running ! great job credit where credit is due !

andrew honychurch · #3 07-10-11, 10:32

thanks Rich. It should sound better once I close off the advance and retard vacuum pick up on the inlet manifold. Thats open at the moment, as I am trying to sort out a pipe for it, but if you put your finger over it, it sounds even smoother. To be fair, its a brand new carburettor straight out of the box so I have not set it up at all as of yet. I need to give it a good run and see what it does, and what the mixture is like, but frankly a bit reluctant to start fiddling with it at the moment.

The exhausts are straight through silencers with baffling to the sides, in other words you can see right through them, and I reckon it should sound pretty mean once its all enclosed and put back together. The Ford Flathead V8 MUST be one of the best sounding engines of all time. I was on an historic car rally a while back and out of 105 entries the car that did it for me, was a prewar Ford two door coupe with a very sexy flathead V8 and well made exhaust. Boy did it sound good!

andrew honychurch · #4 20-10-11, 23:53

so things are coming along very well, I have just made a bracket to carry the modern style 12v coil on the cylinder head, right bank. This is copied from the UK post war style 12 v coil adaption. I was talking with a friend the other day who had experience of the T16 and he told me it will only be a matter of time before the diving helmet distributor breaks down! cheery chap he is. He reckons I should fit the post wear Lucas distributor but stay away from the crab style which is even worse than the diving helmet! I must say that so far, the Diver has not given me any hassle at all and maybe that will change but I am prepared to assume that Ford USA worked it out before producing 13,000 with faulty distributors. If there is a problem with these, I imagine it must relate to the rotor arms or distributor caps etc?
Have received my wiring harness from the States and am gradually working through the wiring harness to make sure its all in the right place! The engine is running very nicely but I still have one leaking water pump. Now, I have not confirmed for sure where it is leaking from, but I am pretty sure its from the centre bolt, not the hidden bolt but the one above it. I recall reading somewhere that when you put this into the block you should silicone it. I didnt! can anyone tell me whether I should whip it out and add some sealant? It may be leaking from the gland and dripping down and appearing to leak from this bolt but I dont think so. Oil pressure is bang on the TM figures which seems low, but is between 25 and 30 lbs when hot which is what mine is achieving.

I reckon to be about 2 days work from being able to take it for a run around the fields , so watch out for the U tube video!

Lynn Eades · #5 21-10-11, 02:25

My understanding is that the football/ divers helmet is the hardest to work on , but a very good distributor. The crab dizzy works well, and is a little easier to work on. The Lucas dizzy has ball bearings and is also a good distributor. the worst one design wise was the " up the top" 8ba dizzy, which of course is the easiest to get to.
If you find a scource of new caps and rotors for the Lucas dizzy,that costs less than moon beams, can you let me know

According to Tony Smith, (a very knowledgeable chap that used to be on this forum) the Ford coil is very unreliable, and even a new old stock one is likely to be faulty these days. Terry Creighton had trouble with new points in his divers helmet (?) dizzy, until Kenny Hughs, from Dunedin kindly supplied him with some good old contact sets. problem solved.
I also understand that condensors were made with some nasty component that has been dropped and that the later model ones are not as good.

If you are going away from the Ford 4 1/2 volt coil to a 6 volt or 12 volt set up, dont forget to bypass the resistor in the dash.
Note;that if you change your electrics from 6 volt to 12 volt, a different condensor is required.

horsa · #6 21-10-11, 02:48

We're 12-volt with the T-16 but they did originally have a 6-volt coil. A lot of people have smoked them when doing a restoration and trying to go back to the factory design. As Andrew said, he has adopted the late war/post war format of a 12-volt coil on a mounting bracket that stands off the head. Most British T-16s eventually went this way and all of them that survived Swiss service did as well.

So far I haven't had any issue with the divers helmet dizzy. I'd think it would be fairly durable since they stayed on the vehicles into their postwar service life and even the vehicles brought into the USA and converted into cut-down logging mules retained that pattern as opposed to something more modern. Still, it's a bitch to work on once everything is bolted on around the engine.

andrew honychurch · #7 21-10-11, 18:32

thanks Guys, any thoughts on the water pump leak?