MTFCA Forum

Ok, I'm not sure of what the year span is for this style coil, I took a stab at it because Steve Jelf showed me a set of coils he got from Ron Patterson for his 15 Runabout. So, I figured if Ron sent these, then these were probably correct for 1915, but they may also be correct for other early cars, even though I can't see it going much past 1914. If any of you guys know for sure what the cut off date for this type of coil is, I'd appreciate you letting me know.

Also I'd like clarification on the windings, both the Primary and the Secondary and if there is 2 of them or not, like on the later coil. If you have some pictures of these windings please post them here so I can modify the drawing accordingly.

As always I appreciate any help you can give me to make this and every drawing I do as correct as possible....thank you!

When did they go from the six screw top, to the four screw top? According to the judging guidelines, the new metal box appeared in May of 1913.

In my view it all depends upon who actually made the coil.
Remember Ford and KW started co-producing the KW Williams designed coil sometime in 1915.
After peering into over 24,000 Model T Ford coils while rebuilding them you can tell who made them and I think KW made the 6 screw black top coils and both Ford and KW made the 4 screw raw red and yellow Brass metal tops.
But then again who knows? There were no hard and fast rules about who made what and when, just guesstimations from extant records.
The exact date this stuff actually made it to the production line could have been different depending which manufacturing facility or Branch manufacturing plant was involved.
Ron Patterson

Ok Ron, how about this....

Here is one I am still wanting info on. Never have found out story of it.

I seem to recall that the 1914 coils still had brads all around the side cover which did not yet have the grooves for the cover to slide on. At some point in this era the number of brads was reduced from 10 to 8. I suspect that the slide on cover came later but how much later i don't recall. Trent provided me with this coil documentation from the engineering record of change. It is very detailed and the coils were evolving each month during this era. Pretty fun trying to “nail” these details down with all the loose coils floating around the universe. Impressive drawing!

"..ever notice that nothing on these cars is EVER straight forward and or cut and dried? "

That pretty much sums up my sermon for the past forty years!

If I have said it once, I have said it a hundred times!
"The model T Ford is the ultimate icon of mass production! Fifteen million cars, all alike. No two exactly alike?"

Wonderful the work you do with all these drawings! Thank you.