MTFCA Forum

After over 30 years of Model T ignition coil rebuilding,
I finished and shipped rebuilt coil #24018.
Ron Patterson

Ron, Do you think you have the process down yet?

Michael (a customer from 20 years ago)
I enjoy telling people that when we both look at a Model T Ford ignition coil, we both see two entirely different things.
I prefer to work on coils that have no been molested by predecessors. Every time I think I'd seen it all, I find some "new" way to make a mess.
Ron Patterson

Ron, How true! and don't limit it to just the coils, diving inside the engine will give you a how in gods name did someone think that was a good idea!

Ron,

Thank you for sharing your knowledge, skill and abilities with all of us in the hobby.

Dom

Kerry
I try to stay in my own lane on this Forum.
Model T Ford electricity is my area of expertise.
Notwithstanding some posters here nobody is an expert in every aspect of Model T's.
Ron Patterson

Guys like Ron make this hobby possible. His coils are in my '17 and have carried me reliably over 5000 miles so far.

Ron does 'em up right pretty. They work, too.

The model T world owes Ron Patterson a debt of appreciation beyond measure.
My dad was a brilliant electrical and electronic engineer (rare for someone to be really good at both!). Although I have never met Ron Patterson in person, I have read so much of what he has written on the subject, that I feel as though I have known him for years. He is without a doubt one of the few people I have met or known that I feel was at or near the level of understanding electricity as my father was. I consider myself to be near the level of understanding electricity at about the one percentile (just don't ask me to recite the formulas? I just look them up when I need them?). Both my dad and Ron P I believe understand electricity about a hundred times better than I do!
The model T's system was an archaic science. Left behind as engineers refined production to a simpler basic. By the 1950s, what made the model T system work was essentially forgotten. Ron P figured it out. He wrote articles published in hobby magazines, explained it in ways people not predisposed to understanding electricity itself could understand the basics.
When nobody had a clue to what capacitor a model T coil needed, or why it was different than most modern applications? Ron P sorted it out, and found sources that would actually work and work well. He began rebuilding coils for people, and explained in ways they could understand the hows and whys a model T's original system was a good system! He taught other people how to rebuild the coils, and do it right. He is THE reason so many model Ts today can run well and reliably on their original ignition system.

Thank you Ron P, thank you.

I echo the sentiments above from here in England.
Ron advised and helped when I set out to really understand the T system.

It seems to me that there is a universal rule that says:
'At some time in its life, the electrical system of every old car will fall into the hands of someone who shouldn't be allowed out without his mother.'

"At some time in its life, the electrical system of every old car will fall into the hands of someone who shouldn't be allowed out without his mother.'".... all those guys who used to work at Lucas?

My thanks to Ron as well for the excellent job on rebuilding my coils and for walking me through getting my generator working again. A very knowledgeable and patient man, two qualities that you don't usually find in the same person. Explains everything in a way that can be easily understood by the average person. People like Ron are the ones who make the Model T hobby so enjoyable. I really found Ron's recent article, on repairing the starter buss bar, in the recent issue of The VIntage Ford, very enlightening. I suspect that I have this issue with my starter and can't wait to make it my fist project on the T this season. Hat's off to Ron!

I purchased a set of 6 (four for the coil box and two spares) from Ron back in 2000.
I put the four new coils in the coil box on my '26 Touring and the other two under the front seat.
The two under the front seat are still in the same spot I placed them in when I got them. I have NEVER had to remove the four in the coil box since they went in.
Thank you for for 22 years of trouble free coil service.

Mike Spaziano.

I have a 1925 with Ron's coils that just turned 10,000, I've not had the lid of the coil box once.

Unlike Larry, I have to remove the lid on my coli box to replace the registration and proof of insurance because I keep those inside the coil box. This affords me the opportunity to say hello to Ron's rebuilt coils, but never more than to say hello and "see ya next year".

Ron's coils take a lickin' and keep on tickin' ! Top notch work, many thanks, Bill