I'm cheating in this area

The Model T Ford mechanical and electrical system remained largely unchanged during its production run from late 1908 through 1927.  There were good improvements the ignition system during that time, the most important, in my opinion was the change to the standardized "KW style" ignition coil in 1913.  

The Model T ignition coil box, contains four coils that "buzz" and the electrical spark to each cylinder.  Ford bought these coil box assemblies from several suppliers before 1913, including Heinze, Kingston, Jacobson-Brandaw and K-W.  Each company's ignition box contained their own particular coil design, which were not interchangeable with the other's.  Lacking interchangeability is a manufacturer's and customer's nightmare.  

For those who have never seen a Model T coil, it is probably the best example of "steam punk" technology on the car.  It is a wood box filled crude looking electrical parts all encased in tar.  They take the low voltage alternating current from the car's built in magneto and converts it into a high voltage spark. The figure below shows the mysterious inner workings of the Model T coil box.  When operating, they each make a buzzing sound as the point open and close quickly.  These coils are enclosed in a box on the firewall and it sounds like a thousand angry bees trapped inside.

K-W coil used on all Model T's from 1913 and on

The pre 1913 coils tended to be finicky, making the car more difficult to run properly.  The big improvement was made by the K-W company with there new coil design, when they incorporated a "cushion spring" on the points mounted on the top of the coils.  The improvement was dramatic enough that Ford switched to this style of coil for the rest of the car's production.  A secondary, but important, benefit was that the cars now had a common size ignition coil that the customer could easily replace with a new one from Ford.  Eventually Ford even built these coils inhouse under license from K-W.

The 1911 Model T that I am restoring was originally equipped with the early style coil box.  Which is lost to history, because the first or second owner replaced it with a later year coil box that used the K-W coils.  Smart move.  The previous owner decided to correct this and found a used Heinze coil box that was correct for the car.  It must have worked well enough for him, because it was still on the car when I got it.

Heinze coils that came with the car

I was concerned about using the original style coils for the reasons given.  I like how the later K-W coils work, and I have experience rebuilding and tuning them.  There was only one guy in the USA who worked on the old style coils, and he unfortunately passed away a few months ago do to an apparent complication with the Covid booster.  He gave me some tips on how to check to see if the coils were good, and the Ohmmeter test that he suggested showed that all of the coils had a short in the windings, indicating that major surgery would be required to make those coils functional again.

I decided that this was one area that I was going to cheat on the restoration.  The Model T parts suppliers sell replica coil boxes that look like the early style ones, but are sized to accept the "modern" K-W ignition coils.  I got one of those boxes along with a new switch box that allows the driver to run the car on the engine's magneto or the standby battery.  Normally the battery is just used to energize the coils when starting the car.  Otherwise the driver needs to turn the crank at sufficient speed to generate the 4 1/2 volts needed.  This is really not a problem if the magneto system in the car is functioning well.  I almost always start our 1915 Runabout with the switch set to magneto.  The cars did not even come with the optional battery from the factory.  

The picture below shows the completed box with four early brass topped coils that I restored.  These coils were graciously given to me by Erik Larson, a Model T coil rebuilder in Idaho that rebuilt the coils for our Runabout a few years ago.  Since that time I have learned how to rebuild and tune them myself.

Replica Heinze coil box sized to accept K-W coils

The last picture shows a comparison of replica versus original Heinze coil box.  You can see that replica box is slightly larger.  The ignition wire attach locations are dimensionally the same, so no change is required for the firewall.  You may have noticed that the stain color is different.  I used Laurel Mountain Forge cherry stain, which is the most recommended stain by T restorers to match the original stain used by Ford.  My observation is that it does match really well the stain found on the original firewall that came with the car.  The original Heinze box may have been re-stained at some point.  Either way, my new coil box is going to work better and match the firewall!  

So, yes, I am cheating on the ignition system for this restoration and I am glad that I am!

Comparison of the original and replica Heinze coil boxes

Restoring the fenders

Scientists tell us that there are 118 elements in the periodic table.  I'll take their word for it, but for those of us who grew up in the Great Lakes area, we all know that there is an additional element; RUST.  I've mentioned before that this car spent 110 years of its existence in southern California, so that meant that there is not much of that dreaded 119th element included on this car.  The one area that I did find rust that needed repairing was on the fender flanges that attach to the bottom side of the running boards.  So why did they rust in these locations on a car located in sunny California?  The best that I can tell, the design is a natural trap for mud or water, which over time allowed them to rust.

The fenders and splash boards before the ugly green paint was removed

The first step in restoring the fenders was removing the paint completely.  The fenders are REALLY thin on these early Model Ts.  My dial calipers show that they are about 0.032" thick, or looking at it another way, 30 fenders stacked together would only be 1" thick.  What makes matters worse is that these early fenders did not have much 3D contours like later fenders, which mean that they are even easier to dent.  Instead of spending way too much time with an angle grinder equipped with a wire brush to remove the paint, I cheated and took them to Kansas Dry Stripping in Derby, Kansas that specializes in low pressure media blasting to remove the paint.  Traditional "sandblasting" would likely result in warping the fenders during the process.  I used this company to strip the paint on the 1915 Model T runabout that I restored a few years ago, and knew that they did great work.

I decided that the fenders were too thin to attempt to have the flanges repaired with brazing or welding.  Instead, I repaired them by structurally bonding steel doublers of the same thickness as the fenders and then encapsulated them with fiberglass for further reinforcement.  The fender repairs were cosmetically finished with body filler, resulting in stronger then new flanges.  

There were a few localized areas that also needed body filler to bring them back to original contour.  The front fenders also needed work to removed denting in the areas where the attach flanges mount on the front fenders.  I wondered how they could have been dented like this, and then I remembered the pictures of the 2nd owner letting different ladies to sit on the fenders to pose for pictures... The fenders are now done and waiting for priming and painting.

Fenders after being repaired and ready for priming and painting

Speedometer Restoration

 While I am planning on doing most of the restoration myself, there are a few items that I have decided that those with the specialized skill and tools are going to do instead.  Those include pouring and line drilling the crankshaft Babbitt, the cylinder and valve machine shop work, and the speedometer restoration.

Early Model Ts came equipped with a speedometer/odometer as standard equipment.  Eventually these became optional items during Ford's never ending quest to reduce the car's purchase price.  The 1911 Model T came equipped with a Stewart Model 26 speedometer; a completely mechanical device consisting of a long, flexible cable that connects the gearbox assembly attached to the right front wheel spindle.  Its little gear engages a bigger gear on the wheel, which turns the shaft that snakes its way up to the speedometer head attached to the firewall.  The following two pictures show the installation before it was removed from the car:

Stewart 26 Speedometer Installed on the firewall

Speedometer gearbox and cable installation

The Ford service manual does not have any maintenance information include for working on the speedometer. The Model T Ford Club of America publishes a series of booklets for working on various areas of the car, including one on restoring the speedometer.  It was on my Christmas list and I read it quickly thereafter.  It was then that I realized that it was going to be like working on a fine watch, and I figured that doing it myself would result in a shiny, but useless piece of brass attached to my firewall.

Fortunately the author of the booklet, Rust Furstnow, also restores these speedometers.  I soon contacted him and before long the speedometer assembly made its way to Arizona and back.  Wow, does Russ do nice work!  There were some parts that needed replacing, and the speedometer cable was from a Model T a couple of years newer.  He said that this was not surprising, as the 1911 cables tended to break.  The cable was too long resulting in it hanging rather close to the road, so he shortened it to the correct length.  I suspect that the cable broke fairly early on, as the pictures of the car with the original owner appear to show this too long of cable installed.  

Here are some pictures of the speedometer head and gearbox after I received them back.  They, along with the restored cable, are tucked away until they will be installed when the car is put back together.

Restored speedometer head

Restored speedometer gearbox