Its a summer day about 80 deg F and your running along a perfectly flat blacktop country road at 35 mph. The ignition is on battery.
Your spark lever is closest to the following setting:
- all the way up (fully retarded)
- 1/4 way down
- 1/2 way down
- 3/4 way down
- al the way down (fully advanced)
Can't say because my ignition is only on battery to start the engine. Running on mag my spark lever would be a little under 2/3 I would estimate.
If its a 6 volt battery you are overheating regardless of spark lever position, even on a very cool summer day like that.
If it were one of mine I would be driving home to pull the motor out to fix the magneto, so it would be a one shot deal.
Forgot to mention standard coils, 6 volt, anco timer, what else?? (lots of variables)
By the book, it is 7 or 8 notched down, about 3/4.
Jim
All the way down (fully advanced). It's where it audibly runs the smoothest.
That is, as long as its a harvest moon, the road was recently paved, and I had spaghetti the night before.
*Eye Roll*
Come on folks, simple question deserves a simple answer.
Dan, I hear you. Not trying to be a muck raker. I only wanted to spell out it was not an apples to apples comparison.
P.S. great, now I'm hungry for spagetti.....
ooops...."spaghetti"....
That all goes out of the window because no one had feeler gauges back then and is not important because we do not know how your spark rod has been bent during the last 70 or so years.
The position of the lever is not important. Henry hid T.D.C. on his timers and other folks built other timers. And . . . . everything went out of the window when other folks built them and he wanted you to use his method of a gauge but several other folks came to the game and you have to use your own brain to get going.
Back when I used manual timing, I would advance it until the exhaust got quietest, then back it off a skosh.
With a name like yours, Erich, you should be hungry for sauerbraten. Thinking of that, our favorite restaurant in W. Germany was the Kaiser Eck, an Italian restaurant in Landstuhl...
About 3/4 of the way down. I run on 6V battery all the time.
To go the same speed on 6v you would need more advance than on magneto. Simply, the current builds up in the coils faster when running at a high speed on magneto than it does on battery, so you need to compensate by advancing more on battery than on mag. I would say all the way down.
The important thing is to find the place where the engine runs fastest and smoothest on whichever source you use.
Norm
My '20 Coupe runs 6 volt battery only too.
If I ever feel like it I'll do in car magnet charge.
I run nearly full advance all the time.
The '19 Touring likes about 2/3 advance running on mag as does the '27 Tudor.
BTW......NONE of them overheat......ever.......and they all have water pumps.
Bud
I did some runs just as you have described several times this summer, we ran to Red Clay State Park which is 18 -19 miles one way, now one trip it was approx: 95 - 98 degrees that afternoon my spark and gas was set at 1/2 @ 35-40 mph my temp was showing about half way up in the motometer ... When I finally saw where it was running at, I eased the spark down to about 3/4 the engine smoothed out just a little more and after 2 - 3 miles the temp dropped way down as well.
So my T likes a lot of spark and about 1/2 to 3/4 throttle while on a flat black top road.... That gets me between 35 mph 45 mph... I'm also running a large crank pulley with a brass hub fan in order to spin the fan a few more RPMs at lower speeds and a water pump. So far so good !
Bud
Your question has insufficient information to reply.
Where is your initial timing set and what voltage battery are you using?
You might find this article helpful to understand the difference in spark timing on battery and magneto and why the setting of initial spark timing affects the outcome.
More on Model T Spark Timing
Ron the Coilman
Mine sits at halfway but my levers are home made with unknown geometry so not sure if i am doing it wrong.
The picture posted by Jim Thode assumes a working magneto. That drawing is not applicable to operating on a 6 volt battery.
You cannot achieve enough spark advance on 6 volts for high speed driving. Read the link Ron posted above to help you understand why a working magneto gives superior performance, especially at higher speeds.
Royce,
"You cannot achieve enough spark advance on 6 volts for high speed driving."
Well, just the same, I did it with my '21 for the 5 years I ran on 6V & coils. No overheating & 40+ MPH.
If you can't do the same, that's fine. Just don't make grandiose, all encompassing proclamations about what I, or anyone else, can do.
From my experience, I retard the spark for starting, and then I advance it and pretty much never touch it again.
I don't like people assuming that everyone who's car doesn't run on magneto has the surplus "kaching" to go out and pay to have it fixed.
I also don't like people assuming that every T that runs today has an operable magneto in it, or has a magneto period.
Magneto's do provide superior performance. But there are a lot of people driving on batteries out there.
If you have a stable of T's that all run on Mag that's good for you, but don't knock the little guy who has only ONE because his doesn't.
I don't like people assuming it takes a large amount of money to fix a magneto. If you lived near me I would show you what to do and it wouldn't cost you anything except your time, and what ever gaskets cost, or maybe a coil ring from Total Recoil. In any case you couldn't exceed $250 for the whole job.
Concerning liking or disliking people, I do neither when it comes to magnetos, water pumps, or type of oil used.
Concerning magnetos, My first Model T ran for a while on the magneto, and then it quit. I drove it on battery for about 10 years. When I was building up my second Model T from a pile of rusty parts which I restored, I decided to rewind the magneto coils. This was done following the instructions in the booklet "Electrical System". I wound 3 magneto rings at that time and installed one in the car I was restoring. Then I pulled out the engine from the one which had been running on battery. I also recharged the magnets. I went from one of the slowest cars on club tours to one of the fastest cars. I have a hill which I use as a test of the running condition of a Model T. When I am alone in the car, I can go all the way up in high gear if I get a run at it. With 2 or more people in the car, I have to use Ruckstell. The car with the rewound magneto went all the way up that hill, which I previously had to climb in Ruckstell.
The biggest investment for me was the time it took to rewind the coils and to pull the engine, but well worth the effort
My third Model T came with a distributor on it, and although it ran fine on the distributor, I found that the crankshaft had excessive endplay. Obviously the reason for the distributor, because the magneto was in the car. I pulled the engine and fixed the endplay. Then I charged the magnets and replaced the ring with one I bought from Langs. (the third one I had rewound was previously given to the local club and auctioned off).
All three of the cars now run on coils and magneto, and run very well at that. By the way, the distributor was also gliven to the local club and auctioned off.
It's not a matter of liking or disliking anyone. Each owner can do what he/she wants to their Model T. I however prefer having a conversation piece when showing the car to strangers. The magneto and the 3 pedals, as well as the starting crank are conversation pieces.
Of course, I don't "pay others to work on the cars either". I do as much labor as I can myself, and let professionals do babbit pouring, turning cranks and cylinder boring, but the assembly and disassembly, I do myself.
Norm
Norman,
I don't believe any of these posts are about disliking people, just some of the things they do. Not that you were addressing me in your statement but, with regard to my posting to Royce, for example, I have no reason to dislike him and in fact think he's probably a fine person, just very opinionated.
I can get 75km/h on a flat road with 6V with no magneto...and no overheating, and that's been fairly consistent over 10 years. It's to do with how it's all set up.
I had no choice when I got my T with its damaged and weak magneto and there was no way I was going to a)fit a distributor, b)fit a 12V battery c)take the engine out. So, I made sure I got the best out of it on 6V.
It is surprising, and unfortunate how many T owners assume they have to give up their coils and timer with a dead or removed magneto. Not so!
I don't personally dislike Royce. He has his opinions and is entitled to them....just like everyone else....
My 27 Touring runs fantastic on 6V battery. I start it fully retarded then advance the spark lever to 55 degrees BTDC and just leave it there!
Ignition timing automatically adjusts itself for optimal engine performance regardless of engine speed without ever touching the spark lever. The car runs incredibly smooth even in high pedal with throttle set at idle.
My '20 Coupe and '25 Fordor both run on 6 volt battery.......for now.
The '19 Touring and '27 Tudor run on magneto.
I had a friend with a cell phone GPS app ride with me in all four cars on a still day.
All four of them topped out at 43 MPH.
My mag' does not work well at idle and when i press the clutch it weakens more so it stalls in town a lot, Usually in front of people. Then i get out and crank and crank until i get tired. People seem to enjoy watching that.
Kep NZ,
Best post I've read in a long time ! lol
Kep,
When you push the clutch, it moves the flywheel back away from the magneto coils. Eventually, your problems will get so bad that you will either need to repair the rear main bearing or go to battery all the time. The magneto should work with the clutch depressed. By the way, how does it run in low or reverse? Does it kill the engine?
Norm
Kep
Going back to Norman comments, if you have excessive crankshaft end play causing your magneto output problem there is a reasonably easy solution.
Take a look at this article.
Excessive Crankshaft Endplay Repair
Ron the Coilman
Effective, yes...easy? Hmmmmm! My hat's off to that guy! I remember it's original publication and was impressed then too!
Has anyone used the repro accessory sold by Lang's (and maybe others...)which shims behind the crankshaft pulley?? If so, how did it work?
The shim behind the pulley stops the crank moving rearward. Might consider it.
As John H points out you can make coils work pretty well on 6V. I would have to add... but not as good as on magneto. Ironically they will not work very well at all on 6V if they are set up correctly using an HCCT. This may seem ironic but it is true. The reason is that if you set up your coils using an HCCT and set them accurately at 1.3 amps you will find that on 6V the coils don't ramp up quite fast enough and the car will run sluggish as compared to magneto or 12V operation. If you set up the coils for less operate current you will have a weaker spark but it will ramp up pretty fast and you can get the motor to perform better and reduce but not eliminate the sluggishness by simply advancing the spark lever further. With correctly adjusted coils, you run out of lever adjustment range.