seeking opinions on condenser

tubman said:
I was considering it, but my partner in this took it upon himself to automate the process. He has been doing a bunch of work for this other projects with an outfit called "Send-Cut-Send" and wanted to see of they would work for small stuff in brass.

They did an outstanding job, and we have been able to eliminate 100% of the manual lathe work on these. Unfortunately, we got a little carried away and spent an additional $2600 (not including his time) getting it done. Our total cost from them is about the same as it was before, but now all I have to do is put them together, eliminating the lathe work which I can no longer do. We bumped the price by $40 to $100, which will allow us to recover our investment if we sell 50 more units. In addition to everything else, my health is slowly improving, and I can do a lot more than I could last year.

The worst case is that the hard part of making these has been "computerized" so it can't be lost. My partner is not a car guy, but I would expect him to offer the suite of files to the proper group after I am gone.

Getting old complicates everything.
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always good news to hear that people are recovering from an illness. best wishes. :)
 
tubman said:
Thanks for the kind words, Don.

Here's a couple of samples of them used as intended. And because they are brass, they can be polished.
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Nice!

588572


588574
 
Denny: Glad your health is getting better and that you are still making your condensers! They look fantastic and I've heard nothing but good things about them!
 
Thanks, Dale. I'm not moving many at the current price, but at least they are still available for the guys that really need them and the design (hopefully) will live on.
 
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I probably shouldn’t say this but——-I actually have a Vertex on my 36 pickup and I have my beautiful Tubman Trashcan displayed on my wall! A thing of beauty if you appreciate excellence! I haven’t even gone so far to look at what is on the 34 5 window I recently had drug here. Just nice to know when or if I need a replacement it is right at hand.
 
Got to weigh in here.

I experienced this same thing on my (sorry but it's a Chevy story...) restored 1996 Tahoe.

Ran great and started great when cold. After it warmed up, forget re-starting until engine compartment cooled down again.

I was at NAPA store for some part and parked right in front of the store when it happened again. I raised the hood to let it cool and a young man that worked for NAPA came out to see what was going on.

Turns out his dad was a retired GM electrical engineer. He was contacted and put on speaker and he asked a few questions and advised for me to see if the engine block to frame grounding strap was secure or loose. Turns out it was flapping in the wind... the frame side bolt having come out. Soon as that was corrected, no more such problem.

He advised it happens because of electrical resistance as wires heat up. He further stated to lose the braided ground strap and replace with a shielded one and even to add a second ground somewhere else and he recommended to place it from block to frame near the starter.

No... I never had this issue again and it has been 8 years.

I am not familiar with your vehicle but consider this as a fix. It worked for me. Good luck.
 
just back from a round trip from East Bay of San Francisco to Denver and back in one of my vintage cars and while gone my Dennis Carpenter condenser was delivered...installed it yesterday. for once, things went pretty well and the car started right up and i took it out for a spin. temps were about 80F.

drove it around the Public Storage area where i keep the car. parked it for a minute or so then drove it another four miles and parked it again for about twenty minutes. started right up again and drove it another four miles and parked it for the third time for a minute or two, then started it back up for the fourth time without any issue.

is this particular problem fixed for good? not really a good enough test yet, but it's not worse than it was. so encouraging. i'll be having a new exhaust system installed next week and having the front and rear spring shackles replaced with new ones of the original size. as the previous owner had installed ones designed to lower the car. and i think that they may be a major contributor to the atrocious handling problems i'm experiencing.

...one step at a time. :)
 
i stated in my last post that the test was not conclusive and it turned out that the problem has not been solved by the new condenser. as i drove, just today, ten miles, in 70F weather, stopped for gas and the car wouldn't start after i filled up. i wasn't stopped for more then five minutes. but i did notice something that i hadn't noticed before...

the coil was very, very hot to the touch. so hot that i could not put my hand on it for more than a second or two. but when it cooled down, after 15 minutes and a light dousing of cold water the engine started right up and ran smoothly again.

i should note that a mech recently tasked with fixing a misfire removed my solid state distributor and my canister coil and replaced it with a two-bolt crab style distributor and a plain black canister style coil. the ballast resistor had been removed from the car prior to the new distributor installation.

research has indicated that it's likely that the coil is not compatible with my distributor set up. soooo, my next step will be to purchase a Pertronix Black Oil Filled 40,000V Flame Thrower l Ignition Coil P/N 40511. i supposedly need the Flamethrower l. not the ll or lll. we'll see.
 
Huey
A 40,000 volt Flamethrower is not needed for a low compression flathead, and it is 3.0 ohm coil, appropriate for a 12 volt car. All you need is any basic coil that will let your ignition system run at about 4 amps. If you are 6 volt, ignition resistor removed, you need a coil with 1.5 ohm primary resistance.
 
JayChicago said:
Huey
A 40,000 volt Flamethrower is not needed for a low compression flathead, and it is 3.0 ohm coil, appropriate for a 12 volt car. All you need is any basic coil that will let your ignition system run at about 4 amps. If you are 6 volt, ignition resistor removed, you need a coil with 1.5 ohm primary resistance.
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i appreciate your concern, but...

i'm not looking for performance. that is of no concern to me whatsoever. i want one that won't heat up to the point of failure after ten miles. for sixty bucks (less than a tank of gas), after all the other money i've put into the car above the purchase price, i'm thinking it's worth a try. as there's little else that appears to be reasonable at the moment.

what's more convincing is that the excessive heat is clearly coming from inside the coil and the from close proximity to the engine as, the metal horns, and inch away from it are cool.

and if this doesn't work, i'll try something else. it's not critical at the moment now that i've, hopefully, isolated the problem to the coil.
 
Does the coil have a marking like "use with external resistor"? If so, add a ballast resistor in line with the coil. The distributor doesn't know what type of coil it is firing, an external resistor can coil can work just fine with a crab distributor.
Are you still 6V?
Are you aware that Ford used an external resistor in the coil circuit? That resistor is mounted on the inside of the firewall under the dashboard. Is it still in your ignition circuit? If yes, should it be (coil type will dictate)?
 
As others have noted, your issue appears to be that the coil you're using needs a resistor - it is most likely seeing too high of voltage which causes it to overheat.

Make sure you know if the coil you're using (or buying) needs a resistor and if so, what size of resistor.
 
JayChicago said:
Huey
If 6 volt, resistor bypassed, this is the coil to buy:

https://thirdgenauto.com/product/1949-55-ford-new-6-volt-ignition-coil/
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...yes, it may be the one i've decided my research shows to be the appropriate one for my purposes and i may already have one...might have some digging to do.

the trouble is i can get no consistent Pertronix part number for it. some say 40001, sometimes, 40011 or 40111 or even 45001 or 45011 or 45111. sometimes listed as simply flamethrower ll or lll. and apparently physical appearance is no help either as i've seen pics of them in chrome and in black.

looks like it will be nothing but a gamble trying to find the right one. and i don't believe anyone knows, even Pertronix. ...they can't AFAIC.

who are these people that run such a company?
 
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