MTFCA Forum

I finally got my little red roadster pick-up assembled and put the engine back in the car.
A T friend of mine that have known the car from the past have told me that it is cursed and often fails when the stakes are high and it's function needed. I was supposed to participate the comming weekend in "Bornholm Rundt" ("Around Bornholm") - one of the best vintage car event in Denmark with over 180 vehicles. Now I will go without Model T and drive with friends as co-driver.

It turns out that the engine only goes on #3 and #4 and occasionally on #2 and only at idle or high idle. if I open the throttle it stalls after some coughing even if you open it up slowly.
Here is a video that shows how it sounds (muffler is broke too ): https://youtu.be/v9EQNdi6jyw
You can hear that #2 chimes in occasionally on the video while it only goes on #3 and #4.

I have switched virtually everything:

• Coils (all refurbished)

• Plugs

• Plug wires

• Carburator

• Manifold gaskets - both "asbestos" and copper rings

The manifold mounting have been redone a couple of times with both type of gaskets (I use to have control of that mounting)
We have checked by wieving down the plug holes that the valves operates in #1 and #2 and the way the starter sounds also indicates fairly good compression on all 4 cylinders.
I'm out of ideas......

The only thing left is the timer. Contacts in it may be loose. If it’s a roller timer, the spring on the roller could be broken. If it’s a brush then it may be worn out. That’s the only other thing I can think of.

Brad

Jeepbone1 wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 01, 2022 2:47 am

The only thing left is the timer. Contacts in it may be loose. If it’s a roller timer, the spring on the roller could be broken. If it’s a brush then it may be worn out. That’s the only other thing I can think of.
Brad

Well, I havent swapped that I must admit as it ran well when it ran last 4 years ago. But point taken. It is a roller and when turning the motor with the krank it buzz as it should on all 4 positions.
And that does not really explain why it will not rev up but dies when I open the throttle.

This is going to sound crazy. I had a similar situation that I posted about and Randall Anderson gave me the answer. He said to make sure the intake was not restricted. The intake had been on a shelf for a few years and I had even had it milled because I thought it wasn't seating at the block. I ran a wire up thru it and sure enough, it was blocked with mud dobber debris. It was so far in it could not be seen the several times I had the manifold in my hands. Art

Art, that's a good point. Amazing how those little critters could crawl up through the carb and up in there. But for sure we should all always start at the timer first and work our "way up", often that's where the issue is and would save a lot of time and headache!

Art Ebeling wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 01, 2022 6:23 am

This is going to sound crazy. I had a similar situation that I posted about and Randall Anderson gave me the answer. He said to make sure the intake was not restricted. The intake had been on a shelf for a few years and I had even had it milled because I thought it wasn't seating at the block. I ran a wire up thru it and sure enough, it was blocked with mud dobber debris. It was so far in it could not be seen the several times I had the manifold in my hands. Art

I had a similar experience using a new-old-stock intake manifold. After trying dozens of "fixes" the only thing I hadn't looked at was the intake. Took it off and found a huge piece of casting flash inside one of the ports. I could have cleared it out, but it felt much better at that point to throw it in the trash!

The timer may work well at cranking speed and at idle speed, but fail to work properly at higher speeds.

In addition to what the others have said, I have a few suggestions. Inspect and clean the timer. Roller timers require frequent cleaning. The fiber ring and contact segments should be round not worn bumpy. At this time also make sure all the insulators are in good condition and the contact segment nuts are snug. If you discover the timer is fine, you still haven't lost anything. Make sure the wires running from the timer to the coil box are not broken and the connections are clean. Also, make sure the contact fingers in the coil box are making good contact with the coils.

Stephen

One other thing I didn't see mentioned is the coil box. If it has gotten wet and the car was started before it was completely dried out, the spark could have grounded through the wet wood. After this happens many times it can burn a carbon path through the wood and the spark could ground without going to the spark plugs. Sometimes you might get spark at idle but under compression with the throttle open, the path through spark plug does not happen and the spark goes through wood to ground. Be sure you are getting spark to each of the plugs and set the gap around .0025" Don't know how that translates to metric. You might need to change the coil box, or replace the wood in the box.
Norm

My T, with a roller type timer, ran well when idling, but had trouble when I advanced it. Turns out that the timer contacts would touch the timer rod at certain locations on the rod as the timer would rotate. I remedied it by wrapping the timer advance/retard rod with 3M, 130C rubber (not vinyl) electrical splicing tape. Stretch it as you wrap it around the rod and it will weld itself to the prior wrapping creating a solid rubber sheath of insulating rubber the length of rod that comes close to the timer contacts as it is advanced. This is the type of rubber tape your baseball coach used to wrap the baseball bat grips with. Jim Patrick

PS. The featured box says the roll contains 10’, but since it stretches about 4 times the length you pull off the roll, you really have about 40’ of tape to work with.

Then if the engine coughs when trying to increase speed, it could be fuel starvation because the carburetor float is not properly set to fill the bowl with gas.

The lean engine situation is normally noticed by the engine backfiring when trying to increase speed though.

One more easy thing to check that can cause this problem is the bolt below the timer that goes through the front of the oil pan into the bottom of the engine block could be pointed up instead of down and will hit the terminals on the lower side of the timer every time you advance your timing and short out that cylinder. I have a 27 T that had this problem and to fix it all I did was to remove the bolt and put it in from the top with the nut on the under side of the oil pan. Car runs perfect now.