I bought a '48 F4, took the cab off and am in the process of chopping it. It's going to be going on a custom frame. Anyway, It has this 8BA flathead, EAB heads, rebuilt ~3,000 miles ago...it hasn't been started in several years though. I took the fuel pump off, took it apart and cleaned it..did the same with the carb..soaked it, cleaned it up. So i'm wanting to know how I can get spark to it to start it. And it has the 6V coil on it...so is it going to just not work if I run 12 volts through it..or will it fry it as soon as I do..or will it work for a little while? Because I don't have a 6 volt battery and will be eventually converting the Flatty over to 12V anyway. So if it will work for a few minutes before it grenades itself, that's fine..I just want to hear the engine run. Can I just run a positive wire to the positive side of the coil and get the spark going that way? This is my first Flatty..so educate me.
It'll run for a while on 12, but can be cheaply preserved by using a pre-electronic Mopar single resistor--tellem you have a '63 Plymouth 318 at the parts store. Look over distributor...trouble spots are plastic grommet and wire where hot leads come in, ground wire on plate.
Thanks, man! I will swing by the parts store on my lunch break and pick up one of those resistors... Oh, also...the truck was positive ground from the factory (I'm really sure?) ...so will just running a positive wire from the battery to the coil, be fine?..or is there a different way of hooking it up I need to go about. Positive ground confuses the hell out me.
Original wiring was positive ground so wire to the existing dizzy from coil is neg as wired so you need to put dizzy wire on neg side of coil before you put 12 volt to positive side of coil.
Okay..sorry for all the stupid questions...so please just bare with me here. So, say the 6 volt coil doesn't work out for some reason...say I source a 12 volt coil.... I wire it up normal...dizzy wire to negative...battery positive to positive side of the coil? Correct?
Correct but you may need to add a ballast resistor as Bruce said in the positive wire or you will prolly burn the points up.
Need for ballast depends on the coil...look up OEM use or instruction sheet if aftermarket. Route of wires should match battery hookup tp starter...whatever is grounde is the terminal that goes to points!
Got it! I bought one of the resistors at lunch..i'm gonna try to fire her up this evening. Can't wait.
Tip on starting. You can spin the starter independently on 12V. I do it all the time and it will not harm the starter. Jumper cable to ground and touch the other to connection on starter. Does not matter if you ground the neg or positive. It will spin the correct way and will spin a lot faster. Just make sure that you have that you do not feed the 12V back through the harness.
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