School me Ford Helmet coil

Step-down

Step-down

Well-known member
I did some horse trading for a 40' V8 . The Disturbutor (Helmet) was missing the coil. My buddy gave me a stock Ford one . He also told me that there a repop adaptor to be able to use a modern coil . My question is input power if I'm running 6 volt position ground on the Ford stock coil . Should I use a resistor before the coil.
Thanks again Ford Barn ...
 
That would depend on the coil, whether it is internally resisted or not if you use the modern coil. The original coil did have a resistor inline before the coil.
 
Step-down said:
My question is input power if I'm running 6 volt position ground on the Ford stock coil . Should I use a resistor before the coil.
Thanks again Ford Barn ...
Click to expand...

Yes, the stock coil requires a resistor, it is mounted on a panel under the dash along with the circuit breaker for the lighting. Original coils often need to be rebuilt because of their age. Not that expensive and can be turned around in a fairly short period of time. Need to check and see if the original circuit breaker/resistor panel is in place.
 
Last edited:
The panel you are looking for should look something like this.
 

Attachments

  • Fuse 01A-12250-breaker-resistor.jpg
    Fuse 01A-12250-breaker-resistor.jpg
    89.4 KB · Views: 31
My '41 came with a remote mounted coil conversion, I picked up a coil from a swap meet and sent to Skip Haney for a rebuild, it came back looking like new and it works great. My resistor setup is mounted under the dash.
 
The only schooling I can offer is to tell you, and anyone else who cares to listen, that any original helmet distributor coil is suspect for working properly IMO. The quality of insulation used back in the day was no comparison to what's available today. The best thing you can do with an original, nos or good used, coil is to send it to Skip Haney for a rebuild, well worth the cost. I personally do not care for using a modern cylindrical coil mounted on top of the engine, and an adapter plate mounted on top of the distributor housing.
 
Last edited:
My advice is to make sure you confirm the coil given to you will bolt up to your distributor before you send it. There are 3 different mounting configurations that I am aware of. I'm going to take the advice here on coils. I just bought an original coil to send to Skip for my 32 pickup. Also, if anybody here wants a new one of those "ugly" coil conversion adapters for a 1932 - early 1936 3 screw coil distributor for cheap , there is one on ebay currently from the guy I bought my stock coil from with an opening bid of $1.00 and no bids. I think this is the 2nd or 3rd time it's been listed for the $1.00 opening bid. Search 1932 ford coil
 
Great! The ¨fuse box¨ is a circuit breaker. The earlier years used a fuse, but it was changed to a CB. Only the lighting circuits were fused and the idea of the change was to provide a bit of a backup. When the CB opens it will close again when it cools and possibly restore the lights (depending on the source of the original overload). If a fuse blows, it is done!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top