MTFCA Forum

Can somebody help me with this problem
today a stood by a stoplight in the town and my engine falls out,
slowly down
didnt start any more, I had never this problem before.
as far I think now I don,t have a spark
what could be the course?
How can I test without special equipment if my coils working properly
hope that someone can help me to find the problem
Bert

I’d first start by tracing the wires and looking for damage. You can also remove the spark plugs and with the ignition on, turn the handcrank while they are on the block, looking to see if they spark.

Do you hear the coils buzzing ?
Check spark at the plug if you do. 1 of the 4 should be sparking. You may have to turn the engine over a little to get a coil to buzz.

Slowly cutting out, I would suspect fuel though...

Bert, what year is your Model T ? Does it have a starter ? Tracing electrical problems is more involved on later models than the pre-starter ones. Dave and James offered a good place to start. First make sure you have battery power to the coil box. Good Luck !!

Thanks all
Its an 1927 pickup
Its evening here but I will do some test as suggested before and post the result.
The car always start very easaly and rins smooth
I thought first als a gasoline problem but the carburator has full patrol, and I put a littlebit of partol in the sparkhole, after starting again there was nothing,
So the best stap now is to see if I have a spark right?
Now I know the way to test it
Bert

Oh yeh, there is barery power to the coil below the box
Bit how can I test the coils?

Any chance you have time to drive to Copenhagen? Michael can test your coils for you. He has a strobospark.

Ha yes I will come some day to Copenhagen with my T, but for now its rather far a way from Amsterdam.. to solve this problem
I am living 20 km Below Amsterdam in a city calld Naarden, Old city
https://www.google.nl/search?q=naarden+ ... x9qSTP_bvM:

will test now first if I have a spark yes or no

just did a test as advise
one bougie is sparking (first one from the cabin) the other 3 dont spark
what could be the reason that this suddenly happens
Crank the car to get other positions but only one bougie is sparking
what test can I do to go further
bert

At this point, I'd suspect your timer has malfunctioned or the wires coming from it got tangled with the fan. Depending on the brand, there are several ways for this to happen.

To test the coils for now, turn the engine over until the one coil sparks...then replace it with each one of the other 3 coils. I will bet they all will work in that one location in the coil box. This will furthur point to the timer, which I'd then pull off and take a good long look at it as well as the contact on the end of the cam.

Bert, do you know Toon Boer in Klaaswaal? He may have some ideas for you and he is closer. He may also know a Model T person near Naarden.

Veel succes toegewenst. Hou ons op de hoogte / keep us posted!

yes I know Toon Waal and will contact him,
I now see the timer arm is not turning, I pulled out the motor and make a revision
what can that be...
not good i think..

I think you'll find the timing gear has let go.
No need to pull engine to fix.

excuse Toon Boer natuurlijk

I think als it has something to do with the timing gear, but why that happen if it is so
do you have any idea?
If I look through the oilfill cap and turn the crank I see a gear turning
Bert

Well, if you see the gear turning, maybe just the timer roller is loose ?
You can turn it over 2 revolutions and check all the teeth on the gear. Fiber timing gears can peal off a few teeth in one spot, but usually don't turn after that.

Or the key is broken and the gear turns and the cam is not...

You know that only one coil is buzzing, and the other 3 are not.

If the good coil is firing #1 (example), and 2, 3, and 4 are dead, then one at a time swap the known good coil with the bad ones to see if the good coil buzzes in 2, 3, & 4. If the good coil buzzes in all 4 locations, then your problem is coils and not the timer or timing gear. But, if the good coil will not buzz in the three non-buzzing locations, and the suspected bad coils DO buzz in the #1 location, then the problem could be in the timer, timing gear, wiring, or the coil box.

at the end I earth every coil (what the timer normaly does) and they work all proparly, so the coils are oke
the reason why only one coil was working is that the timer doesnt turn
now I saw that the gear was turning through the oil fill cap i hope that it is only some connection between the timer shaft and the timer....
does any one has some picktures of that or illustrations in that aerea
because it is late now (1.30 in the night) its better to go sleep now and see tomorrow further
I will come back tomorrow
thanks all for helping
at last
D Lodge
you speak dutch u spreekt Hollands?
My T comes from st Louis
regards Bert

infotfordnl wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 02, 2019 7:34 pm

D Lodge
you speak dutch u spreekt Hollands?
My T comes from st Louis
regards Bert

Excuse us for a moment, folks, we're going to speak Dutch.

Ja, Bert, ik heb 8,5 jaar in NL gewoond en wijlen mijn vrouw (40 jaar getrouwd) was een Nederlandse. Weet jij van wie in St. Louis je auto was voordat die in NL geland is (en wanneer die naar NL is gegaan)?

We now return you to your regular programming...

Waar in Nederland? In de buurt van Naarden?
de vorige eigenaar was Bill Tabor, het zou leuk zijn als je hem kent, hij heeft de T 50 jaar gehad of zo, ik zou zo graag oude fotos hebben maar ik krijg haast geen contakt
excuse this al was in Dutch

If you have the style brake light switch that clamps around the bendix cover, I have had 2 of those short out internally and blow the fuse. you might look there.

Had that happen once and found that pin that turns the roller in the timer had fallen out of the cam hole so the roller would not turn ,made it fire on one coil only

infotfordnl wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 02, 2019 8:21 pm

Waar in Nederland? In de buurt van Naarden?
de vorige eigenaar was Bill Tabor, het zou leuk zijn als je hem kent, hij heeft de T 50 jaar gehad of zo, ik zou zo graag oude fotos hebben maar ik krijg haast geen contakt
excuse this al was in Dutch

Ik heb de hele tijd in A'dam gewerkt maar de laatste drie jaar ook in Nieuw-Vennep gewoond. Ja, ik ken Bill Tabor al jaren. Zal kijken of ik foto's kan bemachtigen.

All: Bert 's car came from here in St. Louis and I have known the previous owner for years. I'm going to see if I can find any photos from when it was here.

If the timer doesn't turn, I wonder...

But if the gear is OK, perhaps the pin has fallen out of the timer as David suggested.

Bert, mijn mail is dlodge apestaartje nedcons puntje com. Als je mij een mail stuurt, hoeven we niet zoveel Nederlands op het forum te zetten.

Suggesting to Bert that we switch to email to reduce the amount of Dutch on the forum.

Dick,

I doubt you are offending anyone. I, and I'm sure the vast majority of others here, are just glad you are able to help.

Hal wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 03, 2019 7:31 am

Dick,
I doubt you are offending anyone. I, and I'm sure the vast majority of others here, are just glad you are able to help.

Thanks, Hal. Bert and I are now in touch by email. I doubt I will be much use with the electrical problem, but I at least have a good chance of getting him back in touch with the previous owner of his car (whom I have known for years, though not well).

Anja and I always spoke only Dutch with each other, but when other people were around, we switched to English. People tend to think you may be talking about them if they can't understand you. We had a running joke with Marge Meek. She overheard us speaking Dutch one day and told us to stop (kidding, of course). After that, we would sometimes make a point of speaking Dutch within earshot of Marge and use her name in every sentence.

ha all,
at the end I found the problem, the 2 pins were out of the valve shaft, I have this fiber gear in the car, the theets looks good but I think the center is a bit to fat so the centre bold doesnt pusch the pins down and regarding the lenght of the pins the can come out without losing the center bold.
I think thats happend.
I can see they were a time out of there position, and I found the motor also a bit weak, afterwarts because of the wrong timing of the valves, I sugested.
Toon Boer suggested also, it is the best to change this gear because of the bad experiance of fiber gears, in combination with a dynamo.
so I will do that
thanks all for all the nice input,
Bert

Bert

that's is a surprising finding! Those pins are not supposed to be loose at all. You may wish to consider using a retaining loctite compound to reset them into the cam shaft to ensure this never happens again.

Yeah, what Scott said...
Glad you found the root of the problem.