MTFCA Forum

Was viewing thread in vehicles for sale. A green 26/27 coupe. It has a starting problem. Someone stated might be grounding issue. Another says why 26/27 they have a ground from engine to frame. My question would be where is this ground?

The most direct and nearest to the starter is the pan ear on the left side. Metal to metal from the ear to the frame, unless you have a thick powdercoat to negotiate.
Allan from down under.

The discussion about the '26
YellowTRacer » Wed Mar 24, 2021 2:14 pm
Need to add a little revision to this classified. The starter isn't operating properly. Turning over the engine so slowly that it won't start the engine. It starts immediately with the hand crank on both magneto and battery and runs extremely well.
kmatt2 » Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:37 pm
Ed. That sounds like a ground problem, which is odd for a 26 with the steel straps from engine to the frame mount bolt. You could add a temp ground wire from engine to frame to see if it helps with the cranking speed.
YellowTRacer » Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:57 pm
Thanks for the tip Kevin I'll try it. I'm brain dead when it comes to electricity.
kmatt2 » Wed Mar 24, 2021 6:49 pm
Ed, I forgot to mention that it is the four starter to hogshead screws/bolts that ground the starter to the engine. You could remove the one you can get to and clean it, replace screw adding a star washer for better ground.
Novice » Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:43 pm
Preaching to the choir. But make sure both of the starter switch posts and cable lugs are clean. shiny and TIGHT along with battery posts. positive and negative. ground lugs and clamps. starter post and lug as well. at 6 volts it doesn't take much corrosion to really reduce starting power and speed. a loose connection will do it every time and the faulty connection after a little starting will be warm or Too HOT To Touch. some times a previous owner has changed out the battery cable out and used a smaller gauge cable made for 12 volts. but the smaller cable robs a good portion of power needed for a 6 volt starter to work properly.
YellowTRacer » Thu Mar 25, 2021 3:59 pm
Thanks Jim, y'now I never even looked at the size of the cable, but I think it's big. I'll do a little checking

In 1926 Ford added steel Stiffing Straps from the hogshead at engine mounting ears down to the top engine mounting bolt at the pan arm. While the purpose of these straps was to stiffen they also provide a additional ground connection. As was said most of the engine grounding is at the pan arms to frame bolt. Many T owners of pre 26 T's with starters add a nonstock engine to frame ground wire.

John, easy enough to try a ground, if you have one of those battery jumper cables for jump starting a dead battery, put one end on the frame and the other end on a starter mounting bolt and step on the starter, if it cranks faster you have a grounding problem, if not, your problem lies elsewhere.

Iv'e been adding a ground cable for a long time om my T's. I install a longer bolt to the pan, attach the cable from there with a nut and bolt it to the frame. Iv'e been doing this since I witnessed sparks coming out of someones front motor mount when cranking at night. Rust is a pretty good insulator.
We sometimes foget the ground is the other half of the ciruit.
My $0.02 Craig

99% of the time if the battery is okay and the wiring is fairly decent, then the problem is inside the starter. The particular issue is usually a hairline crack in the solder bond between the terminal bolt and the field coil strap that goes thru it. You can sometimes even pull the cover band and see the hairline crack in the solder. I’ve fixed this in many dozens of starters. Usually everything else in there needs attention too and also bearings, seal, cleaning, etc, so rarely have I “only” re-soldered that connection. I’ve even found it on a couple “rebuilt” starters that were very nicely done inside with new fields, and very clean. Most of the issue is that the terminal bolt is a pretty fragile connection internally and because it is a fairly large “bolt” on the outside, most people WILL over torque it and the solder joint is the weakest link and eventually fails.

I concur with Adam on this one.
The most common internal starter problem is the failure of the inter-buss bar terminal bolt connection.
I wrote a article for the Ford Fix website on how to correct this problem and assisted Lang's Old Car Parts develop a kit to easily correct this common problem. Here is a link to the article: https://modeltfordfix.com/repairing-a-c ... r-problem/
You can buy the new buss bar and terminal bolt connection repair kit from Lang's. It consists of an entirely new buss bar and terminal bolt assembly that is silver soldered that will not fail like the original electrical grade soldered connection made by Ford.
Ron Patterson

There is a wealth of information about common Model T electrical problems on the "Ford Fix.com" website.