Technical How far can a condenser go?

ALL capacitors detiorate over time, even in storage. Its mainly the electrolite that degrades. I cl*** them as consumables.

 

Lots of capacitors don't have any electrolyte. In its simplest form a capacitor can be two layers of metal foil rolled together with some sort of insulation between, today usually plastic. Some can have a very long life, while others often are the first thing to die in electronics, effectively forcing people to replace their computers, TVs etc. after just a few years. Planned obsolescence, yay.

 

What model distributor do you have? Many of the later ones have the cap clamps attached with a screw, you can mount the condenser to this screw, and run the wire to the same post that the coil wire attaches to the points.

 

M >> I buy NOS points and condenser sets both on Ebay and at swap meets. My Sun dist machine has a condenser tester on it, I have yet to find a bad one in all those NOS ones >>>


Every few months, TwoGuys, Zayres & Kresges ran half-price sales on BlueStreak or Standard tune-up kits for 97¢. Included points, condenser, rotor & a little lube pill. So you bought a few kits. And replaced the old parts whether needed or not. And maybe fiddled with idle mixture screws for a full & proper tune-up.

Then, instead of tossing any old stuff, you re-polished the points with a lady's emery board. Then canned it all in Mason jars. After a while, you've got a lot of cannng jars full of nearly NOS point ignition parts. Everybody who is anybody should still have enough of this NNOS ignition stuff to last several lifetimes. Maybe even enough sell a few jars to the poor nobodies who threw out all their good ol' stuff.

 

Old condensers were made of tin foil and wax paper. Eventually the wax paper would deteriorate and sparks would burn through, spoiling the condenser. New ones are made of mylar and don't have this problem. This is why they used to replace them at every tuneup even though they were still working. The old condensers had a half life of about 10 or 15 years. That means half would fail in that time. If you are working on an old radio with tubes and condensers you can't trust any of them, although some may still be ok. They will wear out faster on a car because of the heat and vibration.

 

"Old" WaxPaper caps were mainly pre-50s. "New" Mylar caps became available in 50s. AFAIK failure modes with today's caps are related more to poor physical ***embly than to component degradation..

 

^I've opened a couple bad ones and both had poorly applied wire ends that caused bad contact with the inner core. One I put back together and re swaged the can back down with a bit of pressure to make a solid contact, and it worked again.

 

OK ,but why the need for capacitors on both ends of the same wire ?

 

RF supression. Different values serve different functions and need to be adjacent to the source to work properly. Same as the alternator supressor.
Coil condenser is much larger capacitance but lower voltage.

 

Thanks Tubman that is what I'm going to do. I also think the majority of the people also agree.

Thought I would be reporting how well it went by now.

I'm also going to switch to 12V - ground and now is the time to switch the coil over.
Wouldn't you know it .... the 12V coil was fatter then the 6V, I had to cut the bracket apart and weld it back together so it works with my new coil .... now it needs paint



Think I have this right, I have The old school Mopar ballast resistor on the firewall with power from ignition switch to it, then to the coil > distributor.

Just saying that I'm doing some changes and trying to keep it to just one change at a time to make it easier to troubleshoot issues. ..... Tomorrow will know if it all worked out.

 

This is also a 6v coil. Now you have two 6v coils.The new one fatter apparently than the old one.

 

If you have any problems with the condenser, ger back to me; I'll stand behind it, even though it is out of the original warranty period.

 

In fairness, although today’s condensers may be garbage, the old ones weren’t all that reliable either. I had to rescue my wife when her car broke down near O’Hare field in 1972, the one in my boat died twenty years ago, fortunately while moored at the dock, and there was a reason the condenser was included in the box with fresh points for decades.

I also had other bad automotive condensers through the seventies, and hardware stores always stocked capacitors for furnace, air conditioner, and air compressor motors.

Thank god for the invention of modern electronic ignitions.

 

Until the module ****s the bed !

 

Or the wire breaks at the pickup coil. That would also involve cleaning and lubing the mechanical advance being your in there.

 

Old paper/foil caps do go bad whether they get used or not, typically within about 30 years. The paper breaks down and the layers laminate together.
Personally, I wouldn't bother trying to use the old Mallory style condenser at all! They were always notorious for a short life span. Get a run-of-the-mill version from a GM points distributor of the 60's. The benefit in a Chrysler distributor like yours is that the points will last much longer with a .2mFd capacitance instead of .3 that Mopar used, and by tweaking the bracket a bit, it will fit inside the distributor where the old one was.

As for mounting distance, efficiency happens with the shortest wire possible. A condenser that's not allowed to discharge fully or quickly will overheat and fail. That means clean engine grounding is as important as wire length and size. I don't see any shiny new wires in your photos, so I'm guessing this may be part of the issue with DOA condensers? Buy from Napa and you'll get good results. If you put the condenser on the coil, double your wire size. Instead of 18 or 20 gauge, maybe run a 12 or 10? I'd make a bracket that uses the 2nd clamp bolt - the one under the distributor body - to hold that Mallory style capacitor if you insist on mounting one outside the distributor.

 

There is no new wires on the truck and I've never driven it outside of the driveway.
I'm in the process of putting it back together after paint, and then will install the new wire harness.
I'm doing a tuneup on it now while I have easy access with no fenders on it.
My experiences with the bad condensers was a past vehicle and the condensers came from napa.
Then I installed 1 new one on this truck & DOA.

The parts I ordered this time is standard motor products Made in Mexico, at least the points are.
I ordered the condenser at the same time but it arrived in a package made overseas.
At this point I feel it worth a try to see if the quality from Mexico is better then China ... worth a shot.
The rub block on the points looks of better quality then the overseas products ..... time will tell.

I know nothing of the Malory style condenser ... no experience with them.
The condenser I'm installing is made here in the USA from a fellow H.A.M.B. member and ***embled with loving care in their shop. They look like the Malory condenser, but they are not.

 

Have you ever "LIKED" a post so you could immediately go back and "UNLIKE" it?

I find it quite satisfying.

 

What you'll find in the Napa boxes now is Standard Ignition products, with the exception of some "Intermotor" which is the import branding for Standard, but coming from England where they don't necessarily have to tell you the stuff is made in Singapore or China. Bummer because some of those parts are not good (but many are).

I didn't mean to offend the guy making the Mallory looking condensers. They do appear slightly different with a great nostalgic look. What was inside the originals was trash so I immediately ***ociate that appearance with problems.
I've recently started soldering up automotive circuit board capacitors to use inside the distributor in place of the m***-manufactured condensers. Its a different form factor, but test results far exceed any condenser I've ever tested (using a commercial capacitor tester designed for automotive parameters.) Hopefully something like this is inside those new br*** ones?

 

A couple points I would like to make. First, in my travels, I have come across quite a few original Mallory condensers. They invariably test out as good, even the ones split open (which is most of them). Second, how can you test for the life of a condenser? When I was developing mine, they initially all tested right on spec. The only question was how long were they going to last? Since I didn't have a time machine, I just jumped in the deep end. That was in 2016, and so far, no reported failures (except for one pre-production prototype). I was real nervous for the first few months, but everything seemed to turn out OK.

 

Ok here is my official report.

Truck runs fine, the photo here the engine is actually running at idle.
I left the original condenser in place just disconnected the wire and tied it out of the way of moving parts. .... My goal was to carry spare known working ignition parts in case I need them .... I have now reached that goal.

I think this is a pretty snazzy ignition system for a firewood hauler (LOL @theHIGHLANDER )

I apologize to @tubman I hope they have a good sense of humor.
I was really laying it on thick when I said they ***emble the condensers with tender loving care in their own shop.
I have talked to tubman a few times, as far as I know he hires bums behind the local tavern to ***emble them .... I just have heard they work well. .... They certainly look awesome. ..... I'm happy to have one and it worked the first time I tried.
I just have no permission to speak about tubman .... I just respect them for creating something we all can use.

This is what I really really wanted to do, mount it up high front and center, I had no idea if it would work. I created the thread to get opinions .... I'm saying it works with the help of the H.A.M.B.
While everything is painted, I did use my dremel tool and clean all the mounting points for good grounds.

I know the pictures of the engine **** .... It sat in a field for 20+ years.
Every cylinder is 110-125 except for #2, it is around 98 .... the valves are not seating perfectly it just needs a really good long drive in the country ..... I'm just not going to dig into it until after I drive it.

 

What parameters do you test? Microfarad rating? Leak down? Charge and discharge rate? Hopefully all of the above and not just the basic gauge on a Sun tester. I find that as they are failing, the microfarads climb from .2 up to around .4 when they completely fail. With different types that I see regularly, I can kind of forecast life span. 25,000+ distributor rebuilds in the last 18 years, you can notice a few trends, especially now that there are really only 4 places in the world making condensers and they're sourcing specific components from Germany, India, Singapore, and Indonesia. How they are constructed is as important as what materials/components are used. I'm down in Shakopee. How do I buy one of yours? I'd love to test one!!!

 

I'm down to my last, I dunno, 100-200 NOS condensers. Just sayin. They cost more to ship than I'd sell em for. Points, I have so many but they're hard to ID. I know I don't have any for 60and up Ford. Irony. I needed points for the Starliner, went thru almost all of em, maybe somebody cleaned me out on a m*** buy at Hershey.

 

Not surprised that Mr Los_Control was successful. A little late to the party, but some science:

From what I understand, Mr Tubmans capacitors are 0.22 microfarads.
***uming you still have a good earth, the only other change in moving the capacitor is that the looooong wire will have it's own capacitance.
***uming a 14 AWG extension wire, the capacitance will be around 0.11 picofarads per centimeter of extension wire... that's 0.00000028 microfarads per inch.
To change Tubman's capacitance by even 1%, you would need an eight of a mile of extension cable.
There is no way in hell that your vehicle is sensitive to a 1% change in capacitor value.

So ***uming you are good at earthing, the "has to be mounted as close as possible" advice is a myth.

Cheers,
Harv

 

What year and engine in your Starliner, we may have some points for it?

 

I got points at Oriellys. 8 bucks. The engine is a 352 4bbl. Purrs like a kitty cat now.

The irony is that out of literally hundreds of point sets I had none.

 

It is always bad form to answer a question with a question. And I will preserve the few I have left for those who need them and appreciate them.

 

I agree the wire capacitance in most cases is irrelevant. But how about the wire inductance?
I've never messed about with it, but there are the stories from the old boys about changing wire length based on what side of the points is getting cratered, to make it as equal and minimal as possible.
On a theoretical level the idea has merit, you can tune a circuit using a capacitance and inductance to change performance, but if it makes a noticeable difference in the real world I don't know. Would be interesting to spend time on testing with a good oscilloscope and a few suitable probes to collect all the relevant data...

 

Man, I thought I was doing well to understand capacitance. I ain’t bright enough to understand inductance (if I tried, my eyes would dim, my speech would slow down and there would be the unmistakable ozone smell of magic smoke being released from my wiring).

We might need a real sparky to answer that one.

cheers,
Harv

 

There is always an SME that will try to dig deeper.
You have what, 8 or so years on the one in your ride?
Kinda beats a parts store DOA.