Startermotor on a Openvalve Engine

[ABoer]

Hallo model T friends ;
A club member asked me or it is possible to put a startermotor on a Openvalve Engine .
Thank you for your answer
Toon

[Allan]

as long as it has a three pedal hogshead with the ususal shaped inspection cover over the bands, i think it is do-able. It will require a different field coil for the magneto and a ring gear on the flywheel.It is not a task to be taken lightly though.
An engineer in our T club once modified an alloy cover on his 1912 mother-in-law roadster to take a T starter motor so his wife could drive the car for herself. It took more work than just retro fitting a later cast iron hogshead, but that's what engineers do for a challenge.

Allan from down under.

[Mike Silbert]

Some early cars used a slightly different size / shape oil pan / hoggs head cover bolt pattern.
It also may or may not clear the teeth on the flywheel die to a slightly different shape.

Anything is possible, how much do you want to change / how hard do you want to work?
The amount of work needed and value of the original early parts is why most of the time it is just swapped for a later engine.
And the original is preserved on a stand in the corner of the garage.

[JTT3]

Mike is spot on. If this engine has a narrow one piece pan you’ll have to swap the pan to fit a starter hogshead. The other option if your lucky is to locate a working starter generator that mounts to the left side of the block. Most I’ve seen have a sprocket mounted on the crank & is chain driven. They are out there just need to find someone to part with it. I believe Jack Putnam had a T that he place one on. Somewhere I have a few pictures I saved. Best John

[TXGOAT2]

Adding a battery would allow taking advantage of the "Free Start" effect. It would minimize cranking and require no invasive modification. Is the engine equipped with priming cups?

[Rich P. Bingham]

I will never understand the obsession with cobbling up an antique with complicated retrofit “bandaids”.

If you can’t abide your T the way it was built, drive something that pleases you. Please don’t butcher an intact, complete historic vehicle for the sake of perceived “convenience”. Driving / owning a Model T is inherently inconvenient - therein lies the interest and the fun of it. In the 21st century, a car 99 to 116 years old is NOT going to be anyone’s daily commuter car.

[TXGOAT2]

Do the early cars have a battery terminal on the switch?

[Rich P. Bingham]

I can’t speak for the earliest coil box systems (Jacobsen/Brandow ?) but Kingston, Heinze and early KW (1910-1913) all had terminals for magneto and battery, and a “bat” switch position.

[Gleaner]

I will never understand the obsession with cobbling up an antique with complicated retrofit “bandaids”.

If you can’t abide your T the way it was built, drive something that pleases you. Please don’t butcher an intact, complete historic vehicle for the sake of perceived “convenience”. Driving / owning a Model T is inherently inconvenient - therein lies the interest and the fun of it. In the 21st century, a car 99 to 116 years old is NOT going to be anyone’s daily commuter car.

I agree. I am removing a late pan and hogshead starter from a restored 1909 that I purchased last year. I don’t understand wanting an early T then putting post 1918 parts on it.

[Jerry VanOoteghem]

One of our chapter members used to be furious when a member drove a non-T or a modern car on a tour. In later years, he could no longer drive his T, and he too would drive modern. He was somewhat less furious after that time. Now suppose you have a 1909 that you've owned and driven for many years but now can't crank it any longer. Personally experiencing that, may make us more understanding of such changes wanted/needed by others. Hopefully, such changes are 100% reversable, however ...

[Dan Hatch]

What is the beauty of the way Henry made the T is just what we are talking about. You can take a 09 with a one piece pan and swap it out to a 4 dip if you want. If you ever have to take up the rods in one you will do that in a NY minute. How many times you think that was done in the good old days?
Again, to me that is what is so great about the T. It was made to keep using even as it got better each year.
Look at the junk they are making now. Buy anything and it is obsolete before you can get home.
Break is over, back to rebuilding hogs heads so they don’t leak.
Merry Christmas yous guys. Dan

[Jerry VanOoteghem]

...most of the time it is just swapped for a later engine.
And the original is preserved on a stand in the corner of the garage.

Adding a starter is no different, as long as no early parts are cut-up or modified in doing so, and the original, early pieces are shelved and preserved as perhaps the whole engine may be in your comment, above.

[big2bird]

I would get a starter engine complete, swap it out, and save the 09 engine for the next guy.

Easy enough to convert back later.

If you can't fix it, its not broken.

[John kuehn]

The open valve engines and drivetrains on the very early T’s should be left as is. It’s hard enough to find an open valve engine itself besides adding upgrades to it. I have 3 T’s in the so called black era and that era of T’s might be better to experiment with but not the brass era cars and especially the open valve T’s.

[big2bird]

The open valve engines and drivetrains on the very early T’s should be left as is. It’s hard enough to find an open valve engine itself besides adding upgrades to it. I have 3 T’s in the so called black era and that era of T’s might be better to experiment with but not the brass era cars and especially the open valve T’s.

I agree John, but its his car. Perhaps he has only room for one car. The next caretaker can reverse it as well.

[Wayne Sheldon]

The problem that has happened all too often with "temporarily" replacing a very early engine in a very early car with a later engine for the convenience of a starter, is that sometimes the car later gets sold and the engine does not go with the car. Sometimes this is due to whoever manages the estate sale didn't know about the engine belonging to the car and simply sold them separately. Years ago, hobbyists didn't care so much about keeping cars correct, and several times I heard of owners actually selling their early open valve engine because they had no plan to put it back into the car.
The sad irony is that however it happens, the car's later owner can spend a great deal of time and money trying to get an appropriate engine for the car, while the engine winds up with someone that spends years and money trying to piece together a 1909 car. Several times the engines wind up with someone that won't sell it (dreams of "their 1909" that never gets even half done). Often they become the legends of "I know somebody" with an open valve engine.
The worst part of separating them (whether planned or not?) is that there becomes one less proper really early model T. And that loss might become permanent.

People's situations can be different. Their finances, where they live, space for more than a couple cars?

Generally speaking, I think somebody that can afford to own a real 1909 T should be able to own and care for at least one other model T. I think any good real 1909 model T (either preservation or restoration), due to their rarity, should keep that car basically pristine. Get a 1912 to 1915 if your preference is brass era, or a black era model T to monkey with and add a starter.

I do think that real open valve early model Ts should be driven, enjoyed, and seen fairly often. But they need to be handled with care to minimize potential breakage.

[Rich P. Bingham]

Agreeing wholeheartedly, Wayne. Thanks for that.

Ten years since I “returned to the fold” I have noted the graying (and the passing) of many of the knowledgeable and prominent T aficionados who have given life to this enjoyable hobby for so long. At this point, I really must protest the prevalent attitude that the owner of a car has carte blanche to do with it whatever pleases him, or whatever he finds convenient, regardless the consequences to the machine. The latest examples of the breed are now 99 years old. It should be patently clear that we who own and drive them today are mere stewards of a tangible part of the moving force behind monumental changes in daily life, from the 19th century well into the 21st.

Surely some responsibility attends this stewardship, to preserve these wonderful machines for future generations to enjoy, as we have, with the integrity of a reasonable authenticity ?

[Dodge]

My Dad had a 1912 Touring. During the late 1960's he bought a Gray & Davis starter/generator complete with all the electrics and battery box
for the day when he was unable to crank his car anymore. Well he passed at 95 yrs. old still cranking that car.
The Gray & Davis is still sitting on the shelf waiting for the day when I can't crank my Brass T anymore......
Let's see if I can still do it when I get old, I'm only 75 now and cranking and been cranking that car for 60yrs. I really like cranking that old
girl.

[TXGOAT2]

I'd see how skilled I could become at obtaining "free starts" with little or no cranking needed. Parking the car on a slope to allow a "rolling start" is another option in many areas.