While I was doing a bit of reading about some early 50's GMC racing engines , magnetos seemed to be the hot ticket. They mentioned Vertex and Scintilla which I believe merged into Vertex. I've been p***ively looking for something for my 302 and the only one I came up with was close to $2000.00. That was too much for me so I just googled 6 cylinder magnetos and was surprised to see a whole raft of different options from industrial and agricultural to aircraft. My question is , can one of these be adapted for auto racing use? I virtually know nothing about mags except for the fact when someone asks you to hold this while they spin one and you piss your britches. I had one apart from a 1926 American LaFrance firetruck and it only needed a broken wire replaced but it nearly knocked me out when I gave it a spin. So , could you take the bottom half of a points distributor and marry it to say an aircraft mag? My only thought is most of those industrial and aircraft engines are lower speed than what a performance car would see. Thoughts?
Yup, where do you think they came from originally? I dug thru my Ex's Uncles place a few years back. He restores John Deeres, I was looking at building one for a Banger and found some cool options. Plus they were cheap! And you TOTALLY have the skills to do it Wico 6cyl
I highly recommend this book First thing you will need to determine is rotation most magnetos will have an arrow or cw ccw symbols
Speaking of Magnetos, I’ve an old Te***pse<sp> engine that won’t fire. No spark. Points new, clean and gapped. Can the magnets be replaced in those or?
Yes.....it can be done. Older 4cyl. magnetos are much easier to find, but it can be done. I have several 4cyl. magnetos for old Chev II 4cyl. engines in my dirt track midgets that were based on Wico or other tractor/industrial magnetos. As already mentioned, look at rotation first and foremost. You can adapt the magneto to a 6cyl. distributor base and away you go. Have fun
A friend of mine had this a WICO Model X magneto for a Chrysler flathead 6 mated to a BlueFlame Chev. 6 drive!
Also a guy in the lower valley here, Albany, I think, pretty well known mag repair shop. I can't remember the name of the shop, I'll look into it.
Dang, been a few years since I tried to fire it up, I don’t even know if it has one. Damn you, I have to head out back and look. . Do Mags use condensers?
I went through a similar process a few years back trying to find a magneto to suit the GM Holden grey motor (1948-1963, inline 6, 132-138ci). Few were available, and you needed to sell a kidney to afford the ones that were. I haunted eBay for a while, snapping up dead six cylinder Vertex magnetos. No use buying the four or 8 cylinder ones if you are running a GMC 6. It didn't matter what the magnetos were originally made for, as long it was a 6 and most of the pieces were there. Rotation is irrelevant as rotation can be readily changed in a Vertex once dis***embled. I then sent the magnetos to a local magneto shop who overhauled them for me. There is not a huge magneto industry in Australia, so finding a shop that would do them was harder. Having half a dozen of them to do at once made the job more attractive to them. I suspect you would be more able to do this with a single magneto in the US. Service parts are readily available for the Vertex's. The shop also reshafted the magnetos to suit the Holden motor (short shaft, drive tang on the end for the oil pump). I supplied the drive gears by robbing old, busted Holden distributors. My use will be largely for racing, so the advance weights were removed (Vertex advance weights are notorious for giving irregular spark, even in the models with the internal brake to help bring the weights back in under decelleration). In the end, I got back a number of maggies for my own use, and onsold the rest. My learnings, and a bunch of techo information on how Vertex magnetos work, history etc are here: http://www.fbekholden.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20727&hilit=magneto+thread Cheers, Harv
Y'know , I was half *** expecting "naw you can't do that because...blah blah" Ok , so it's feasible to marry the two . Do all mags have an advance ? That would help tuning alot. So what's the voodoo with rebuilding them? I know there are guys who specialize in that but what makes them so mysterious? I guess I just gotta jump in and try one out. There are several on EBAY that seem to be quite reasonable...can't hurt to just try it.
The Vertex's are not hard to pull apart, and the Vertex manual will give you a pretty good idea how to do it: https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/3517582...s0317za4QzRtbzuA0JM7Dl065m|tkp:Bk9SR76FvIr7YA Most of the servicing is pretty simple... no harder than a distributor. However, you will need specific Vertex tools (degree plate, cam wrench and pointer) if you want to change rotation (to reset the break angle). This is not always needed. What is often needed though is to recharge the magnets. This needs some machinery most shade tree mechanics don't have, so it is mostly easier to get a magneto company to do the full overhaul. Cheers, Harv
Funny story. My wife was watching the British Antiques Road Show and some odd thing came up for I.D./valuation. I don't recall what it was because apparently I was deeper into the HAMB than I was the "Tele". I only heard the "expert" use the word Scintilla, then he said Scintilla again so I perked up, then he said Scintilla means magneto, really, or maybe it's just something the Brit aircraft mechanics coined. Actually, a lot of "sparky" related synonyms too, Google it. Cool logo eh! A little history for those that care. Here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scintilla_Magneto_Company
Some have a simple oiling system for horizontal mounting, vertical will usually have oil cups. Industrial usually have the impulse mechanism for starting. faster they are spun the hotter the spark until the points float, older lawn mowers at 360° firing have no issue at 7k rpm. If there is a magnetic pic up intstead of points its [the pic up] speed of reaction will govern top rpm.
If you are going to send it out, ask about rare earth magnets. They cost more, but they seem to be all the rage.
My dad used to recharge my magnets but I don’t know how to use these pieces Pic #1 You place the magnet on this Pic#2&3 He called this a variac (sp) Pic#4 I think this is a rectifier for changing ac to dc Pic #5 This is a growler for checking armature windings If anybody has any knowledge about this I’m would appreciate it Thanks Edit After research there seems to be some YouTube videos I should be able to use a car battery with pic#1 I do have a spare ihc mag that works I may have to try it out
When I ran sprint cars we used Vertex magneto's. They were fixed with no advance. However, I do know there a Vertex magneto's out there that do have centrifugal advance. On the sprint car we ran about 42 degrees initial timing. However, we were running methanol and had a push truck to start the engine.
Same here with the dirt modifieds. I have both setups, fixed and advance mechanism. And the injected 350s I ran also used methanol, and idled just fine at around 1000 rpm, regardless of fixed or advance equipped.
I know nothing about it, but would love to see it doing what it does. Heck, send it my way (I’ll cover postage) and I’ll see if I don’t smoke it!
Sounds like I need to do a tech article on charging magneto magnets with before and after spark I can set it up on my lathe like I did my’34 distributor
I ran a vertex in Joe Fontanas GMC at Bonneville when my son and got into the 200 MPH club at Bonneville on 75% nitro. When stock they are 1-1/2 to maybe 3 amps. The best we ran was 196. I borrowed a 5 amp and my son went 202. We sent his to Joe Hunt to be converted to 5 amp for the following year. He installed rare earth magnets and then you need an external coil. The following year I went 215 in the last mile on a higher load and bigger tire diameter. The most important thing you need is a magneto base for the early GMC or Chevrolet. A later base can be made to work especially if your not using it to turn an oil pump. A Ford 6 cap base and cap are the best because it’s bigger in diameter to keep the cross firing minimal. If your looking to run high loads of nitro you do need one. On gasoline it’s not necessary as there some really great electronic ignitions out there. All my past and current records on gasoline did not use a Magneto. Good luck.
I just had a Wico JEM Model mag reconditioned for my A Banger, was told the older condenser’s insulation breaks down over time and is the most common cause of failure in magnetos. Even NOS condensers are trouble and should be replaced with modern ones. Mine has no advance but I set it at 28degrees total and it never misses a beat.
In regards to your original question The following is an excerpt from the before mentioned book to consider Got the magneto mounted to the lathe today need to come up with wires and plugs to do a baseline for spark Plan on increasing the plug gap until it loses spark This is actually something I’ve been wanting to do for a while
Here's an online auction (local to me) that has a magneto rebuilding bench. It appears to have a setup for spinning them. There's also a lot or two with parts and maybe complete units. https://www.oldhamauctions.com/auctions/detail/bw90519
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