MTFCA Forum

Hello, first a bit about me. New here, been a lurker for a decade at the old forum. I was an “A” guy for years, but I retired a bit ago and sold off my A and way too many collected parts, sold everything except most of my shop equipment, put it into storage, bought an RV and am traveling the country for a while.

While we travel we are looking for our next house to live in for the subsequent chapter and it will have a shop for me to fill again.

So I bought a ‘26 Roadster to have my next project waiting for me. It is being moved into storage next week.

It runs well, actually very well. Has not been restored, but has been “fixed up”.

It needs upholstery and is missing a few things that I will gather over the next year or so and have waiting for me when I land somewhere.

It has a Water pump, and a distributor. The current owner does not know when or why it was converted.

I think I would like to remove the distributor and restore that end of it. I think the buzz and coils are a required part of the charm.

I am looking for thoughts, advice and a list of parts that I should be acquiring to convert it back to Mag and coil.

Thank you in advance.

I have some extra red lights, if you wish to be a fire chief!

Well, iff’n they are period correct! I planned to use it for Santa in the Christmas Parade, but I could also make it a Chief’s Car for Muster Day!

The normal reason for the distributor conversion is failure of the magneto. Th magneto is actually quite reliable, and some problems can be taken care of externally, but if the issue is serious, it can mean pulling the engine and hogshead. The water pump is usually a band-Aid repair for a bad radiator, the fix is to replace the radiator with a modern, Berg's flat-tube unit. a bit pricey, but I don't know of any T owner who bought one who regrets it.

As John said, often a distributor is a sign of a bad or missing magneto. Some folks even remove the mag to lighten the flywheel which may make some sense in a speedster but you loose smoothness & ease of taking off in a road car. Some previous own had done this with my '23 Runabout. I wanted to go back to coils & 6v and the E-Timer turned out to be the answer. You do not need a mag with it and the spark is good & hot even on 6v.

Paul

Thank you for the replies. I have a Magneto Meter and I can check that out when I get my hands on it. If the Magneto is missing its a nuisance but I can deal with that. Hoping that someone just thought a “modern improvement” was in order on this one. Or the Magneto needs to be “recharged”.