T16 running problems

[andrew honychurch]

Hi Guys, its a very long time since I have posted on here, been busy with some other non military projects. Last time I used the T16 it konked out after 1.5 miles and limped the remaining half mile to the showground stopping every 100 yards. This is not a new phenomenon, and in the UK the T16 had the unenviable reputation for doing just this even when in service. I have heard all sorts of explanations but still not a fix. Suggestions such as faulty rotor arms in the Divers helmet distributor to fuel vaporisation etc etc. I am sticking my neck out but I reckon it's ignition from the way it dies. I was also told years ago by a very competent mechanic that 90% of carburettor problems are electrical, and I must say my experience sort of bears this out.

Anyway, it is time to solve this issue and enjoy the lovely T16 as it was intended to be used.

I am running a 12v coil mounted on a bracket off the cylinder head through an adaptor onto the top of the divers helmet dizzy. Yes it get hot in there, and the coil gets very hot but perhaps if the rotor arm is shorting this is overworking the coil.

Anyway, I am sure this has been discussed or experienced before so please help me get this sorted .

I don't want to really buy a modern distributor at least until I know FOR CERTAIN that this is the problem. Arggh!

[jeff davis]

Are you using a internally resisted coil?
If not pick one up it sounds like coil overheating and quits working .
Jeff

[andrew honychurch]

Hi Jeff, thanks for the reply. Do you mean a Ballasted coil? In fairness I cannot recall and have not even opened the engine decks for 12 months out of disgust! If it's a non Ballast coil it would be running at 13 plus volts I suppose . What do you reckon it should be running Then? Also, I guess a 12 v coil may have found it was easier to short a tired old rotor arm out than the original 6v coil?

[jeff davis]

Take a look see what kind of coil your running.
Not sure on voltage output. My Carrier also had problem with blocked fuel line that allowed me to drive it long enough to have it stall in awkward position during parades .
I have a Mgb that I dropped a fridge on and smashed the hood that has not seen road for years because I am so pissed off .
Regards
Jeff

[Richard Farrant]

Hi Andrew,
Usually when a rotor arm fails, it is tracking through a crack to the distributor shaft. When this happens it is normally terminal, ie no go, no more. Intermittent as you describe, gets hot and stops, cools down and goes again, sounds like a condenser failing.
Another thing, make sure the coil is wired the correct way around.

cheers Richard

[andrew honychurch]

Originally Posted by jeff davis

Take a look see what kind of coil your running.
Not sure on voltage output. My Carrier also had problem with blocked fuel line that allowed me to drive it long enough to have it stall in awkward position during parades .
I have a Mgb that I dropped a fridge on and smashed the hood that has not seen road for years because I am so pissed off .
Regards
Jeff

Ah, yes these things can be very frustrating. I will check the coil tomorrow and report back.

Richard, I will check the coil wiring and think about the condenser, but must remember that this is a T16 problem so on any normal ignition issue I would of course think these are real possibilities. Perhaps it's throwing me off the scent and it is one of these after all . I wonder if there is an electronic ignition kit that fits in the divers helmet dizzy?

I was speaking with our mutual friend Bill who recalls going on a road run with 7 or so T16s and every one stopped dead and were towed off to ashford never to be seen again!

[horsa]

Might be good to verify the cable from the coil to the dizzy is good. Breaks, bad connection or corrosion would prevent the coil from being able to hand off power and it would overheat and produce intermittent performance. When restoring the dingo recently, I had very similar issues which symptoms would have indicated a fuel issue. Vehicle would start from cold and run smooth a bit before seeming to have a fuel starvation issue with rough running and then stopping. Couldn't restart immediately which would have seemed like the engine was flooded or we had a vapor lock issue. Coil was extremely hot though after a race car mechanic suggested it was an electrical issue. In out case is was coil issues and this resolved everything. If it ends up being the same situation for you, a heat shield for the coil, or modification of the mounting bracket to get t further away from the head might help. Alternately getting a coil that is rated for high heat and for shock since some will fail if bounced around too much.

[rob love]

One thing I have learned with the early ignition systems is to stick to metallic wiring for the ignition wires. The 7mm and 8mm modern carbon core wires that are commonly installed on these engines in the past 60 years or so are not ideal.

When it comes to ignition parts for the Ford Flathead, there is really nothing that is not available from places like Mac's. Even the original distributor mounted coils are now available. I have used them and am quite happy with their performance.

[andrew honychurch]

Hi David. Long time. Thanks for the advice, I am going to look at the coil and leads tomorrow and see what I have fitted. I did manage quite a bit of work with the T16 when first restored but the problem was always there but just getting worse all the time. Another owner here in the UK with exactly the same issue solved it with a new built electronic distributor. Apparently his Carrier now runs non stop all day and is as sweet as can be. He did fit a new high powered coil to go with the dizzy. Since I don't do much with the T16 I was rather hoping to avoid the cost of a distributor but I am convinced the divers helmet is at fault, at least in this application. I copied the bracket for the coil from a British Army mod on yet another T16 here in the UK but you are probably right it's getting just too hot. I think we may have discussed this before but again quoting an old wives tale, I was told by someone that a large batch of rotor arms were made with the wrong bacolite mix which resulted in tracking. That maybe rubbish of course but sounds credible. Did you once tell me that your T16 suffered from this as well?

[andrew honychurch]

Originally Posted by rob love

One thing I have learned with the early ignition systems is to stick to metallic wiring for the ignition wires. The 7mm modern carbon core wires that are commonly installed on these engines in the past 40 years or so are not ideal.

When it comes to ignition parts for the Ford Flathead, there is really nothing that is not available from places like Mac's. Even the original distributor mounted coils are now available. I have used them and am quite happy with their performance.

I will check my HT leads but feels confident that they are the style wire multi core type. I maybe wrong . Problem with fitting the 6v coil is that I dont have the voltage reduction item (can't recall what it's called now)

I do wonder why they were specified with 12 volt electrics and a 6 volt coil. Surely not cost cutting?

[horsa]

I'd reiterate what Rob says with making sure you have metal core wires and not modern performance types with a carbon core.

When I had my T-16, it did suffer from this issue but I was convinced at the time that it was fuel/heating related and not an electrical/heating issue. I switched to an electric fuel pump and it seemed to resolve the problem for the most part. The dingo came along after we'd sold the T-16 so I wish I still had access to it for testing the coil/wiring fix since it 100 percent nailed it in the case of the dingo. I was very skeptical until I saw the results first hand changing the leads and ensuring good connections.

A related issue for you is the noise suppression "filters" on the coil and spark wires. Essentially each is an electrical short waiting to happen if you have them installed. Basically 18 self inflicted places the wires can be getting poor connections as the wood screws loose contact with the wires they are threaded into. Sixteen ends on spark wires and two ends on the coil wire. Very similar mechanically to how the dingo wires have the screws to make contact inside the waterproof distributor housing.

On 6v to 12v, Ford was using 6v on cars and trucks at the time but they wanted 12v for the wireless set. Easier for them to stay with a stepped down 6v coil during the war.

On electronic distributors, most come with a very hot coil which is likely epoxy filled as opposed to oil filled so they can be mounted sideways and are shock/rattle proof. Many oil filled coils will begin to fail if mounted sideways/horizontal which gets worse as they overheat. I'd get a high performance epoxy filled coil and check wires before changing to an electronic v8 dizzy. If you do go electronic, you'd not be out anything since you'd need both anyway.

[Richard Farrant]

Originally Posted by andrew honychurch

I do wonder why they were specified with 12 volt electrics and a 6 volt coil. Surely not cost cutting?

Andrew,
This was to aid starting, as is done on the Rolls B range engines only they have a 12v coil on a 24v system, running through a ballast resisitor. This is bypassed all the time the starter is engaged, giving double the voltage to the coil to compensate for voltage drop due to starter motor.

[RichardT10829]

I had an issue on a run where mine started to lose power then ultimately called it a day.

The issue was the ignition was drinking the battery dry, the generator just wasn't putting enough juice into the battery.

I had the brushes changed on the generator and the problem never came back.

Should it happen again it's worth checking your battery just after it happens

[andrew honychurch]

Thx Chaps. Will report back asap. E type coil is horizontally mounted on front of cylinder head adjacent to the header tank. Hot hot hot but they work ok. Maybe not as hot. I now have a digital laser thermometer so will be interested to see HOW hot it's getting.

[jeff davis]

Originally Posted by Rhett Fisher

Hi Stewart,
I see that you already have several well informed replies re. your problem but I'll shove in my five pennyworth anyway!
As far as I'm aware, all the 6v flatheads,early or late, use a nominally 4v coil with a wirewound resistor between it and the ignition switch. This resistor is made from Eueka wire which has the property of increasing its resistance as it heats up. This has a very useful effect in basic ignition systems, i.e, the primary current is shared between it and the coil. When the engine is idling the contacts are closed for a relatively long time, so the primary current tends to increase giving the coil a hard time.
However, the resistor counters this so the coil does not cook.
On the other hand, when the engine is at high revs the resistor cools, allowing plenty of current to convert into high speed sparks.
Another handy effect of this system is that if the ignition switch is left on with the engine stalled, the resistor stops the coil going into meltdown if the contacts are closed. I think the resistor should measure about 0.75 Ohms at 20c.
Great care must be taken when setting the contact breakers on 8 lobe cams, as one set 'makes', and the other set 'breaks'. The contacts are NOT 180 deg. apart, which cleverly increases the coil saturation ( Dwell ) time to 36 deg., giving a better spark.A proper setting fixture is best but I have had good results using a vice to hold the distributor, wiring in a coil, plug, battery and resistor, using a drill to turn the dist. shaft at approx. 2000 RPM, using a dwell meter or 'scope to check the results.
A later development of the Ballast Resistor is the cold start bypass system i.e, when the engine is cranked over the heavy starter current drops the battery voltage from, say, 6v to 5v. A separate wire from a terminal on the starter solenoid is fixed to the coil primary terminal, bypassing the resistor, so now there is 5v to a 4v coil and, hey presto, big fat sparks to fire the old girl up! Clever huh! This system overcomes a problem known as coil robbing which some folks may have experienced by the engine firing just as you let go of the starter switch.
Sorry if all this comes over as a lecture but i've always found that things are much easier to fix if you know how they work in the first place!
Good luck,
Rhett Fisher

From an old thread sorry don't know how to bring up except copy paste
Jeff

[eddy8men]

just to add to the confusion a mate has a t16 that was doing the same as yours and he replaced everything without success until someone told him about the localised overheating that the engine suffers from, can't remember what he did but if you know tobin jones you could ask him or I will on your behalf.

rick

[andrew honychurch]

Originally Posted by eddy8men

just to add to the confusion a mate has a t16 that was doing the same as yours and he replaced everything without success until someone told him about the localised overheating that the engine suffers from, can't remember what he did but if you know tobin jones you could ask him or I will on your behalf.

rick

Thank you. I have spoken with Tobin, it was he who fitted a new Electronic distributor. I am just awaiting details on which unit he fitted. .

[andrew honychurch]

Ok. I have not had a chance to
Check on the various items we discussed as yet but I am already some way down the road on this as it's a known fault. Some years ago a friend had a brand new T16 out of a crate. Yes really. Mitch Hickman some if you will know him. His did the same and he got rid of it, I think to the Budge Collection from memory. That was way back in the late 70s

Anyway, I am sure it's the dizzy so I am going to invest in a Mallory three bolt with Petronix Electronic ignition. I know all the risks of an electronic module failing but I am not using this to commute in!

I will report on results. Thanks for the advice

On another note, perhaps worthy of a new thread I have given up on my regulator box. In fact both mine and another take off neither if which work.

On the T16 the regulator looks like a Jeep Delco but has a clamp over it and the contacts are sprung copper plates. I want to replace it with a modern insert and wonder whether anyone can recommend a suitable kit? I know the dynamo is working fine . I have bought these for old motor bikes Perhaps they are available for big boys toys?

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Contact Bert van de Bult via http://sixvolt.nl/en/, he builds electronic regulators which go inside the original housing

[andrew honychurch]

Thanks Hanno. E mail sent.

[Lynn Eades]

Andrew, Do you mean Autolite? Jeep and Dodge Used Autolite electrics (standard Quarter Master Store stuff) Delco is General Motors.(Chev, or in Britain,Vauxhall / Bedford)

[andrew honychurch]

I probably do mean Autolite actually, yes! Getting old and tired. It doesn't have a tag on it but it is very like a Jeep regulator other than the clip top and spring contacts.

[andrew honychurch]

http://s714.photobucket.com/user/van....jpg1.jpg.html

Here is a shot of the T16 regulator for reference. Sorry it's a poor photo

[horsa]

There were two types of regulator housing. The one with clamp around the center is the T-16 early pattern. Latter looks just like those used in a jeep but it has higher capacity guts being 12v 55amp which were the same as found on the U.S. half-tracks.

Vintage Power Wagons in the USA produced electronic replacement guts to fit the regulator housings. Not sure if they still make them or not but it's what I had in my carrier.

http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/showthread.php?t=9136 Message #161 in my old carrier restoration thread shows the later style regulator housing for reference. Guts should fit in either housing though since its a digital circuit board.

[andrew honychurch]

It seems barely possible but its now nearly 2 years since I posted on this thread about ignition problems with the Divers Helmet. Well I had used the T16 around the field but it still stopped every time it got hot.. Today I pulled the distributor. Is it getting harder in there or am I getting older. Boy its tight. Anyway, on looking at the distributor its not wonder that the coil was working over time and hence overheating. The rotor arm is burnt to crazy around the contacts and some of the bacolite has burnt/chipped away. One set of points is stuck closed, not sure why, possibly it has slipped but oddly she was running on 8 last time I drove it. I am using a 12 volt high output coil through the adaptor that fits on the top of the dizzy instead of the 6 volt coil. I wonder whether the 12 volt is too much for the old rotor arm and its tracking right through it and creating near full time sparking hence the firing on 8. Seems highly improbable but one is forced to think about odd situations when things don't make sense.

So , pretty sure rotor arm is totally finished and probably at fault, but was the 12 volt the fault, or the constantly closed points on one side of the distributor? ( its a twin point set up)

I am now going to give up on the divers helmet , I have heard just so many tales of woe, and since it was perfectly rebuilt and set up only about 150 miles ago its not really upto the job.

Would be interested in observations . Andrew

[andrew honychurch]

Some photos of the offending items, and luckily I discovered I had bought a box of new Rotor arms!

[Dave Newcomb]

Hi all; There is a site for the Ford problems/sales Fordbarn.com the Early V8 posts are the Flathead stuff... lots of Early Ford V8 club members there and the best ign guru is Bubba's electronics co. Newc in Oregon USA

[Lynn Eades]

Andrew, If you still have the dizzy out, have it checked again. making sure the dwell is correct and timed correctly. (one set of points does each) I have heard that this dizzy is better than the later crab.
As far as load goes, dont be tempted to over gap your plugs. The bigger the gap, the higher the voltage required to fire them and as you know that spark is always looking for the easy way out.
I have read some but not all of the thread, but have your coil tested. It needs to be tested hot as it would be in use. That's when it will break down. (the standard 6 volt coils including NOS ones are guaranteed to fail) It is a hot enviroment inside those engine covers and everything needs to be clean and tight with good insulation.
Make sure your adapter has no signs of tracking or cracks.
Used points are good because the gaps don't change so quickly.
If there is any rust on the points springs then they easily break.
If you are going electronic, then pertronix do a unit that goes straight in.
I would suggest a Pertronix II.
They recommend resistor leads (should be fitted with all electronic igns)
There are leads available that have spiral wound stainless cores along with the carbon. I have gone this way but as yet cannot report on them.
You will need the correct coil to go with the system.
There is no condensor with used when you convert to electronic.
Good condensors are harder to find than they used to be.
Basically you have to go through it all to guarantee a good result.
Finding someone who is good with the distributors and has a timing jig and can run the dizzy up on a distributorgraph would be ideal.
Good luck with what ever you do.

[andrew honychurch]

Thank you Dave and Lynn, some great advice and pointers. I shall check out the web forum you mention Dave.

Lynn, thanks for the detailed advice, and I will certainly check out the dwell. I would dearly like to find a jig so that I can set this up myself, last time it cost me £100 and lasted a short while.

Basically, over here in the UK, there is much talk about the divers helmet being fault, and that this was down to a batch of bad rotors or distributor caps that had the incorrect mix in the bakerlite which led to conductivity and tracking . The tracking over works the coil, the rest is history. One chap I know was in the Post War National Service and they went out in 12 T16s on a 20 mile drive. They all broke down and had to be recovered to works. Every T16 bar one I know about in the UK has suffered from this failure when hot. The only one that I doesn't has the crab distributor fitted.

The inside of my Distributor smells of burnt electrodes. I was going to bit the bullet and fit a Mallory Alloy Billet dizzy but they stopped making them, so I am at a loss.

What I had noticed is that the original rotor was very lose on the drive shaft with a great deal of slack on the square drive. Do we think my high power coil could be at fault? Plugs were set as per the book. I will rebuilt it and try again, but i have lost confidence in these dizzies as I have heard so many bad things about them in T16

[Richard Farrant]

Originally Posted by andrew honychurch

The inside of my Distributor smells of burnt electrodes. I was going to bit the bullet and fit a Mallory Alloy Billet dizzy but they stopped making them, so I am at a loss.

The only cause I can think of, of burnt electrodes in the cap is when the coil is incorrectly wired up on the LT side.