MTFCA Forum

I have nine coils. Some test OK using the hand held Model T Coil Winding Checker "Coil Beeper" and some do not. Should I discard the ones that do not test OK or should I make them available to someone? What use could someone make of them?

Some people use them for craft items. Mounting clocks in them, painting a Model T on the side, hard-luck awards, etc. Maybe advertise them in the classified section as free for the cost of shipping.

Some guys always need "cores" for rebuilding them. They even pay a stipend for them! Put em on the classifieds.

Almost any coil can be rebuilt. I would certainly save any with good wood.
Rich

Making a clock out of them is about the only thing they would be useful for. If the coil was tested with the usual "beeper" that most of us carry at swap meets then it is telling you that the High Voltage secondary is open and thus the unit is not rebuildable unless you can see the winding damage and confirm it is not internal to the winding and you can fix it but that is highly unlikely. Selling them as possible rebuildable coils is simply not fair to the buyer and if you demonstrate the beeper test before you make the deal with him then OK but shipping it is not worth the shipping cost risk unless they are nice boxes and can be made into a clock or bookends as the final resting place for them. Yes it is "possible" that the winding break can be jumped over when the HV (SPARK) is trying to happen but that is still a very marginal coil.

Do you have pictures??

Bad boxes? May have good parts inside to repair an internal failure. Good box, bad inside? May need the box to make a rough coil nicer. A few years ago, I went through about fifteen bad coils and was able to make nine good ones by swapping pieces around. Several of them turned out to have simple and accessible failures that were easy to repair.

I'll take them. Might be able to fix some or use pieces.

Andy

Never discard coils. Coil rebuilders charge a core charge if they rebuild coils for you without you providing them a core in the form of a spark coil unit they can use to rebuild coils for other customers. The wooden boxes and coil point parts are also valuable to collectors, especially if they have the Ford script on them and the box corners are dovetailed. Now that you know they have value, you can put them on eBay and sell them. Someone will buy them. Jim Patrick

I just tested them again! All but one beeped the tester. I am pretty sure more than that one tested bad several months ago. Is that possible?

Yes. Test results can change depending upon weather conditions, environment, contact condition, temperature and even in the way in which the probes are applied. Jim Patrick

I fixed quite a few coils that had simple broken connections inside, often simple bad solder joints. Those have a tendency to test good sometimes, and bad other times. I know that a few of the ones I fixed tested that way. A couple of them, I tested with my ohm meter three or four times. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. Just a minor change in temperature, or leaning the coil one way or another will make the bad connection touch, or pull away. And sometimes the bad connection hides inside the solder button where the connection goes through the side (or bottom) of the wooden coil. I found a few of those that looked fine, but tested bad sometimes. I used to work with troubleshooting electronic equipment. We called those "cold solder" joints. The solder didn't bond properly with one piece or the other, and after some years, would develop a high resistance inside the solder. After that, I re-soldered all of those connections on all the coils I rebuilt.

Are the beepers and StroboSpark Testers available again now?

If you don't want them, at least give them to someone in the club who likes to salvage coils, or rebuild them. Many times it is just a loose connection or a bad condenser causing the problem Even the wood can be salvaged for a coil which is otherwise good but the wood is shot.
Anyway, don't toss them in the dump.
Norm