MTFCA Forum

I'm working on a 1914 steering column. It has a later style straight spark rod lever riveted on badly. I don't know if I'm going to be able to save it. My question is were they bent all the way up to 1921 when they discontinued the ball joint on the timer rod? At any rate, I'm probably going to need another. The part number is 3530.

I generally have the straight ones. $8. Let me know if you are interested. Email only, no PM’s please. They are stored away in the bins with the rest of my swap meet stuff. Since I’d be digging anyways, I could see what ends are on the NOS crank pins I mentioned a couple weeks ago and you could have an opportunity to obtain one of those too.

There appears to be three designs of this lever: Early, (bent) Mid to late teens (bent) with Ford script, Late (straight) with Ford script. The earliest examples have the lever at the bottom of the body for the lever. The second design which I got this morning has the lever in the center.

Here is the second design of the bent lever design. This one has a Ford script, and has never been installed on a car.

Here's the earliest of the spark leads Larry is referring to.

Yup! That is it. Thanks for posting Steve. The reason I post this stuff is to keep everyone knowledgeable on the facts. I recently had a conversation on this subject with a long time well respected member, and was told this item never existed. He later changed his mind!

So Larry, do you think this bent one I posted a picture of a couple weeks ago was made that way or a straight one that was bent? (Note the pin hole is very off center - possibly a manufacturing defect?) I too have seen enough of the bent levers that look like the later style levers, that I had thought they likely were made that way.

Of particular note, in either case of the “bent” ones: the center of the ball, when attached, closely intersects a perpendicular line to the rod at the pin-hole.

I found I have two like Steve posted. I have one I'll probably use that I had to bend the angle back in. The other one I have, someone enlarged the hole for the pin, so it would need fixing. I'm rebuilding a 1914 steering column for a friend. What a job! Getting the pins out for all the levers and spring retainers is definitely no fun at all!