Recently replaced the caps on 8 coils and a new friend and fellow club member Bob J graceously came over with his tester to set them up. I also replaced a "Best" timer with an original Ford type I had.Suspected the timer but electrically it was OK (no carbon tracks or shorts). Just thought the orig. was a better design. Listen you guys out there that have been horsing around with buzz box testers and the like (as I did for years), the difference is totally INSANE with properly set up coils.I can lower the idle until you can almost count the fan blades and it just sits there ticking over. Also this morning, after completing the timer replacement, it started on one pull on mag. I could kick myself, and I'd deserve it. Thanks again to Bob for his help and Ron for his advice.

Charlie B.

Got gas ????

Enjoy your ride !!!

Bob J.

Bob J. fixed set of 'em for me too, and you're right.

Properly set-up coils make a world of difference!

Thanks Bob,

Rick Benjamin

Yeah Bob, I got gas (the liquid kind) and you can be darn sure I'll check the level more often too!

Charlie, that is great to hear. The original roller timer is tough to improve upon. Ford's design was the industry standard of its time in terms of quality and reliability.

I can't understate my delight at the outcome. As I said to Bob I was considering doing the valves because of the way it was running. I had replaced the head gasket,mostly for clean-up and to have a look and all seemed good at the time. It was only through the Forum that I realized I needed to do this first.

There are those who would have resorted to installing a distributor before doing what you did. Congrats! There's another believer.

I tested two coils that would produce no sparks on the hand crank coil tester, but produced good sparks on the 6 volt buzz box. I never could determine why that happened, but I gave it back to the guy and told him to send it to Coilman for a rebuild.

Usually the buzz box will tell you if a coil is bad, when there are no sparks, but not if it is good, as the random misfires can not be seen.

James: 3 of the coils I re-capped and buzz box checked threw lousy sparks, just about twice the normal plug gap. Two were KW's and one was a no name. All 3 read 2800 between the button contacts as opposed to the 5 Ford coils which read 3800 and threw a spark over 7/16". Yet all 8 passed the hcct testing with some adjusting. Why one would not work on hcct and would work on a buzz box is for the experts. Differences in supply voltage maybe?

For those of you testing coils by whatever means - DO NOT set your test gap any wider than 1/4" or you could do serious damage to the internals of the coil. The T coil has no safety spark gap inside to protect from arcing between internal wiring and windings. Thus by setting the gap wider than the coil would ever encounter - you run the risk of internal arcing which will lay down a carbon trail inside the coil unit and make it tend to want to arc there when the coil is in normal operation. The 1/4" gap that I recommend is more than adequate to prove out a good coil and will not result in the coil being damaged by internal arcing.