Setting points...retard or advance position...

[pooch]

Yep, I am playing with a ford sidevalve V8 ATM and learning it.

It has 45 degrees of rotation for each cylinder and spec is 36 degrees dwell, so the (dual) points are only (both) open for 9 degrees.

I doubt a single set of points could do that at 3400 RPM crank speed 1700 dizzy speed..

Although 30 years ago before I knew how dual points work, I threw out the second set on my 302 and it ran fine on one set.

A model A would not care too much about dwell having 90 degrees to play with and only 2200 RPM crank and 1100 dizzy.

 

[100IH]

About 45 years ago I was working the evening shift at a tire store and an older guy who did the tune up was working on his own car with a Mallory dual point. He was following the instructions to the best of his ability, but it wouldn't start. After about an hour, using the flap from the points box for a feeler gauge, he got to the point of throwing things across the shop. It turned out that the packaging was plastic coated to make the boxes shiny and expensive looking. The clear plastic stuck to the point faces because they had gotten hot. My test light showed me that there no path to ground. Cleaned the surface of the points and it started with a huge black cloud and a backfire that really loosened up the guts of his glasspacks.