Hello Ron, I feel your pain, I have a 14 Touring Car with so so compression. I hope your timer rod hasn't slipped because you could get hurt starting the car with the crank if it is advanced with the spark lever all the way up! With what you have told us, this is the list in order of what I would do to locate the trouble:
1. Remove all the spark plugs so the engine is easy to turn but leave the spark plug wires on and the spark plugs laying on the cylinder head.
2. Positively verify that there is no spark at no. 1 and no. 2 by slowly cranking the engine over a full cycle. I assume you are using an external battery source for ignition.
3. Since you have already swapped no. 3 and no.4 coils for no. 1 and no. 2 coils I don't believe you have a problem with the coils. The next step is to check the wiring and the timer. The Model T fires the coils by having the timer ground the appropriate timer at the correct time. I would use an ohm meter to check the continuity from the coil connection thru the wire to the timer and across the timer contact to ground. Remove no. 1 wire off of the coil connection (not the spark plug connection), hook one leg of the ohm meter to the end of the coil wire and connect the other ohm meter wire
to any good ground. Slowly crank the engine and watch the meter to verify continuity to ground. I bet you don't have it!
This past spring I removed the timer on my Model T and used 600 sand paper on the contacts of the timer and wiper and then wiped them off with solvent. Be sure your car is timed correctly With everything cleaned up, the car started very quickly. Good luck. Checking these things out can be fun and will give you good experience if you stuck on the road. Ed
