Help! Electrical issues

Easiest way (for me) is to pull a spark plug and lay it on to of the head with the metal part of the plug touching a head bolt. Then with the switch on crank the engine. You should get a nice blue spark. You could check them all but usually if your sparkin' at one they all are.

She only needs three things to run; compression, fuel/oxygen mixture and spark.

If you have no spark I think I would start looking at the switch and wiring since you say you have voltage to the coil.

Sounds to me you MAY have more than one problem going on, ignition and the headlight short.

Good luck.
 
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Gooseloony, there are others here to help you find and fix your problem and as they say about too many cooks....
I will leave diagnosis to them but don't despair with your purchase. You have bought one of the most reliable vintage cars there is but after 86 years, all of us will have a few problems ourselves too. Sort your way through the issues and checks you get here one by one without feeling overwhelmed and eventually, you will have it sorted, then you will feel more confident and prepared to take on whatever comes next.

Just my advice.
 
You may have fiouled spark plugs by now as well. Another check would be take the coil wire and hold it a quarter inch for my head bolt and crank it and see if you get a big blue spark then you know that the primary is working and then you can check the spark plugs next.
 
Chuck Sea/Tac said:
Another check would be take the coil wire and hold it a quarter inch for my head bolt and crank it and see if you get a big blue spark then you know that the primary is working...
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I used to have my wife hold the wire for me and when she started jiggling around I knew we had ~40,000 volts... :rolleyes:
 
Thank you all for the help and encouragement, sincerely. Tonight I am a one man show so will have to wait until I can get someone over here to do the cab thing while I do the engine thing. Hoping things happen soon, right now I am one frustrated Model A owner.
 
You can also ck for spark easily by yourself by holding the coil wire near a head nut as mentioned and open and close the points manually with the key on..
use a plastic knife or such ,the points should also spark when opening and closing
maybe in the heat of battle you accidentally left the key on and burnt the contacts.. sometimes filing them helps. just sayin...
 
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Update--will be having a friend coming over tomorrow evening (hopefully). Today some strange goings on, I would (at times) get voltage reading all the way from the battery through switch to coil then I would "crank" it just a couple of times, still wouldn't turn over. Took voltmeter directly across battery terminals and zilch/nothing. Checked water level in battery (down just a little), filled it and now have a charger on it (again). Bad battery? If I could get a photo loaded you can see it is a fairly new battery, which was also offered up by previous owner. Oye ve!
 
Gooseloony said:
Update--will be having a friend coming over tomorrow evening (hopefully). Today some strange goings on, I would (at times) get voltage reading all the way from the battery through switch to coil then I would "crank" it just a couple of times, still wouldn't turn over. Took voltmeter directly across battery terminals and zilch/nothing. Checked water level in battery (down just a little), filled it and now have a charger on it (again). Bad battery? If I could get a photo loaded you can see it is a fairly new battery, which was also offered up by previous owner. Oye ve!
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A "new battery" used to mean a good battery. Unfortunately not all current "new batteries" are good. Charge it and take it somewhere (the auto parts store) and have it tested under load.

Charlie Stephens
 
That may be a good option Charlie. Funny (well not really) but even when the battery didn't show a charge the lights still worked :confused:. The battery charger shows fully charged now but I will begin messing with it again tomorrow after work.
 
Thank you Mike. That's great info and sketch...I hope to move from dummy to semi-dummy soon, however I may not have any hair left after reaching the semi-dummy point.
 
This is a photo upload test...had to consult the guru at work. Just seeing if it works so I can begin posting photos which are a lot more helpful when asking questions.
 

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I don't see the end cap and locking collar on the end of the conduit. Looks like the conduit touched the bare wires and shorted it to ground.
 
That is correct Tom. Update with starting problems, friend showed up today after work, was very knowledgeable and I was impressed (ofcourse I'm easily impressed by others who know about car mechanics. He took the carb off, cleaned it all up, put it back in and it fired right up! I thought geez why couldn't I have done that. He made everything look so easy, oh well I did get to learn something through this process. And I really appreciate all of the responses and concerns from all of you here, I hope I can count on you for (no doubt) future issues.
Also of note, my friend noticed that after dumping the sediment bowl and refilling that more sediment showed up. He wanted me to ask on the Barn if there are additives that A owners put in their gas tank and do these vehicles typically just run off unleaded?
 
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