MTFCA Forum

A friend asked me to look at his 1913 coil box. I was having a difficult time finding him any information for testing and rebuilding.
For starters is it correct assume that the test points would be on the same place as the later coils?

What should I expect the secondary resistance to be?


Thanks!

Matt

Sadly, one of the only guys that could have answered this has recently passed away. I’m not sure what the readings should be but I would assume that the capacitors are toast or soon will be. I do not know anything about Kingston coils but I have changed the guts in Heinze coils with the ones you buy for regular coils and the capacitor. If you stick with the core height dimensions that the original cores are, I’m pretty confident you can have the same results as I have. It is a lot of work, but I found the results are worth it. I’m pretty sure you can get all new Kingston points and parts through Lang’s and or Snyder’s.

You might want to check in with Brent Mize - perhaps he can shed some light on your questions.

Matt-
When you say "test point" do you mean which contacts are for magneto, spark plug, and timer? If so, yes. Operationally, they are the same. Ford had specifications for the coil boxes, which means any coil box can be mounted and wired up the same on any car. However, dimensionally, there is no standardization of the actual coil units contained within the coil box.

As Darren stated, the capacitor is likely bad and will need replacing. Lang's lists Kingston points in their catalog; whether they actually have any in stock will require a phone call.

Hopefully someone operating Kingston coils can check the resistance of their primary windings so you can compare them to yours. Same with the specification of the capacitor.

When I was working with Heinze coils a while back, I tested the coils using a Heinze coilbox along with some jumpers from the contacts of the Heinze box to the contacts in the strobospark.
Good luck!

: ^ )

Keith

The US cars may be different but that looks like a 1912 box the same as my 12 .

Thanks!
I appreciate your thoughts and insight.

The coils boxes are in immaculate shape! Unfortunately, three seem to have opens on the secondary when I read with the ohm meter. The third one reads 3.89k ohms.

On the top of the coils someone shorted out the contacts. These must have been used with a modern aftermarket ignition. Could that have killed them? Or perhaps they were ran without a spark gap? That would have been a unfortunate mistake!!!

These are similar in size to modern coils. So I could see how they could be great candidates for a new coil. I look forward to additional insight!

Matt

Matt , that same 'shorting' of the points was necessary when running an aftermarket original master vibrator, not an uncommon occurrence on early cars.

Allan from down under.

Matt,
The coils you have there are late 1910 and 1911 Kingston coils.
The bridge wire, on top, between the contact point was for using a Master Vibrator Coil, as Allan from down under said.
The resitant of the high tention coil should be 3.5K to 3.8K Ohm.

Rebuilding these coils is not that easy. To do it right you should take them totaly apart. I did it a few times with the good advice of late R.V. Anderson. We will miss him. I hope that the parts he made will stay available.

To take them apart, you must first heat the finger joints with a paint stripper, pay attention do not burn them. The heat will melt the glue.
You will find a brown-red block with in it the coils and de condensor.
I replaced it with good coils out of Ford coils with a bad box.
The low tentions need to be cut for a few mm. There for just pull two or three turns on each wire on the underside of the coil. For the condersor I used the condensor offered by Snyders but Langs should do also the job.
Replace the contact points with new and give the other hardwear a good cleaning.

To set the coils, now there will be some comments, you should have build the four coils and the coilbox and use a good working HCCT.
On the coilbox make wire starting from the hight tension post to the ground post. There should be a 1/4" gap between the wire and the ground connection.
On the HCCT you should have a 5Vac meter.
The ground connection of the HCCT should have four connections to the ground connection of each coil with a max. 5Aac. current meter.

The coils should give a good spark at 0.8 to 1.5 Vac. at 0.8Aac. To set the current you should use the set screw
The reason to test and set the four coils togheter is, it is the only way to get the four coils working equally.
Current should be the same for the four coils .
Good luck.
Andre Belgium

Andre,
Thanks for the insightful photos/descriptions!

Again I appreciate everyone’s insight!

I was able to test this coil even before cleaning the points. Since they don’t have any cushion spring, I am not sure how I would remedy the double spark. Perhaps a double spark is a feature on these coils?!?

I measured the capacitance to be .33 uF. If these haven’t been rebuilt I think it’s quite amazing.

Thanks again MTFCA!

Matt

Matt,

You can not get remedy on the double spark. It will be there.
You need to set the coil for the best spark (1/4") in the air and 0.8 to 1.00Aac current and max. 1.5Vac.
If current is to high or to low you should pleat the spring a little bit but pay attention do not over do this way back is hard to do and the risk of breaking the spring is there.

The most important thing is to set the four coils at the same current and tension.
At the old times, to do this, they use a driven HCCT (stable RPM) and the coils were in the coilbox.
Somewhere I should have a photo of that. As soon as I find it I will post it here.
Look for this thread:
Model T Ford Forum: Forum 2017: Heinze Coils, advice and a little help needed. From 01/10/2017 to 01/13/2017.
It was R.V. who give me the most of the advices. The article is about the Heinze coils but is the same for the Kingston coils.
Can you send me your Email adress? I will send you all the information I have about these coils.
Good luck
Andre
Belgium
P.S. just found the photo.

Andre/Matt: Thanks for posting this, it's a great read from both a technical and historical perspective. I learned a lot from reading your posts. I wish Vintage Ford would do an article on this topic or at least include more technical/historical articles in the publication.

You got to love that Strobospark, and Matt, that coil testing module is cool too. Keystone Cranked Coil Tester, better register the KCCT trademark before someone else snaps it up! Respectfully, jb

Andre,
I just sent off an email.

I can see the need without a cushion spring for the Master vibrator or calibrating all four at the same time. Thanks for mentioning the Heinze Coils link I found it: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/70 ... 1484321536

Thanks for repeating:

You need to set the coil for the best spark (1/4") in the air and 0.8 to 1.00Aac current and max. 1.5Vac.

(I believe you intended to say AC amps not volts. I got confused and thought I needed to make a low voltage power supply set up. But then I saw the following Quote from RV in the thread you mentioned.)

Heinze coils, for example, should have the vibrator tension set to draw between 0.6 and 0.8 amps; the early ("high-bridge") Kingstons, about 0.7-0.8, and the later "low- bridge" type used in later 1911-early 12, about 0.85-1.0 amps. The Jacobson-Brandow Company recommended that their coils be set to draw 0.2 amps.

Again, thanks for the great info!

Matt

jab35 wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 27, 2022 9:38 am

Andre/Matt: Thanks for posting this, it's a great read from both a technical and historical perspective. I learned a lot from reading your posts. I wish Vintage Ford would do an article on this topic or at least include more technical/historical articles in the publication.

I don't disagree with you. In my research I am now interested in looking up the articles mentioned in the thread linked in my last post. Namely: The Vintage Ford's 3-part series entitled "The Model T Ignition Coil" by Trent Boggess and Ron Patterson (Vol. 34, Number 4). It seems like a updated reprint of this series would be very electrifying.

jab35 wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 27, 2022 9:38 am

You got to love that Strobospark, and Matt, that coil testing module is cool too. Keystone Cranked Coil Tester, better register the KCCT trademark before someone else snaps it up! Respectfully, jb

Actually James, this coil tester does have a name FACT. See the following thread for more info: viewtopic.php?t=9072
The FACT is very handy. I have shared the designs and am happy to help anyone wanting to make/use it. I don't think there is a better tester I could have connected to these coils. No, I am not looking for money for it. Just helping people in the hobby.

Matt

Allan wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 25, 2022 2:24 am

Matt , that same 'shorting' of the points was necessary when running an aftermarket original master vibrator, not an uncommon occurrence on early cars.

Allan from down under.

Allan,
Thanks for explaining that. I finally understand how a master vibrator works after reading a recent thread on the topic.

As you know, it connected to the positive input on the bottom of the coil box for all the coils. The master vibrator acted as the points for all the coils, but only the one coil would spark when the timer was triggered for that cylinder. What a clever solution!

Matt

Matt,

You need to understand that, at the time these coils were used, (pre 1919) there was no electric starter on the Model T and the battery used for an
"EASY" start were three or four 2V thrown away cells set in serie.
Most of the starting was done by hand on the Magneto. The output of the magneto during hand cranking is around 2Vac. To get the engine started, you need a good magneto and good working coils at that low tention. This is also for the later Ford coils.
There for, and this is my opinion, the only right way to set the Model T coils is using a good HCCT. By using the HCCT you imitate the working of the ignition in the Model T.

The settings are all AC, current and tention.

I get an Email from the forum administration but there is not your Email adress in it.
The information I like to send you is in one file but the is to big to send you this by mail. I will use "WeTransfer" to send it. There for I need a life email adress.
I will send you mine in a PM.

Andre
Belgium

Matt: I've followed your development of the FACT, thanks for sharing and leading that effort, and nice to see it in use and working well! jb

Andre,
With your encouragement I decided to open the box. The boxes are in amazing shape- like they were made a year ago! I have open to many of the boxes of the newer quails and they are much easier. The glue on these I still need to figure out how to heat it as you suggested.

Thanks!

Matt

Matt,

You are on the right way.
I use paint stripper heat air gun, but pay attention not to burn the wood and take your time to open the box one piece at the time.

If some of the panels like to stay togheter just leave them. You just need to take out the coils and work inside the box.

Good luck
Andre
Belgium