I have a 46 tudor sedan with an original flathead 8, 6 volt. I have owned the car for a couple years and it use to run. The motor has compression, fuel and spark.....yet I can not make her run. The battery is new and fully charged yet when I turn the motor over it seeems to rotate very slow and comes to a near stop. Could this possible be the starter dragging, if so is ther anything I could do to relieve the drag. Also, I tried to ark across the silinoid yet achieved only spark.....no starter rotation. Confused and frustrated. Thanks for help.
I am goofy so don't listen to me!!! I would jump it with 12 volts and see if it starts. Remove the 12 v asap. The better solution would be to remove and inspect the starter. Bad brush, loose wire, stuff you can see. Next would be to take it to an auto electric shop and have it checked. You can check for bad connections by running a voltmeter from the neg terminal to the starter terminal. If you see voltage when cranking, you have loosses in the lines. You can do the same to the ground. I ground to the starter case.
The first step is to figure out why the starter isn't spinning the engine as fast as it should or why it isn't turning the engine at all. Is the battery fully charged? Is the battery in good condition? 6 volt Fords are positive ground. Is the battery connected correctly? Are all of the battery cable connections clean and tight on both cables? A lot of guys paint an engine up nice and pretty and then forget to scrape the spot where the ground cable is fastened to the engine so it makes a good contact. A lot of older cars and trucks have a ground cable/strap connecting to the frame and then another cable or strap connecting from the frame to the engine block and each connection is a spot for potential resistance. If all of those check out and the solenoid kicks in when you go to start it it's time to check the starter it's self. That will mean pulling it off and taking it to a starter/generator/alternator shop that can properly test it. It may just need cleaned up, it may need a complete rebuild or it may need replaced. Once you get things so the starter will spin the engine over at a decent speed and the car starts you are good and can then figure out if it needs more in the way of a tune up or carb rebuild. If it doesn't start it's time to figure out why. Does it have "enough" compression to run? Is the ignition timing right? You said it had fuel getting to it. Are the plugs clean and dry?
I recently had the same problem with my 46 pickup after a few months layup. Everthing was working ,had sprak,gas and a good battery (12 volt),but still wouldn't start. When I checked the colour of the gas it was a cloudy orange. Drained the tank(3 gallons at $9 a gallon here in England. Added some fresh fuel and it fired up straight away.Pump some gas into a clean glass jar and check the colour ,it should look like moonshine.
All good advise above. Positive ground Fords are notorious for bad grounds. Make sure your battery connections are good, clean and tight. Same goes for the other end of the cable too. Make sure you have a good ground engine to frame.
Hey Givie, Welcome. How about doing an introduction and tell us a little about yourself. Many guys come in here to ask a single question and we never hear from them again. If your car has set around for some time you may want to clean all of the starter and battery terminals as they may be corroded. Thats a good start anyway.
Wow, thanks all for the help. I used all your advice and here is where I currently stand. There was an electricial short at the starter button that would work some times and cut out other times. The flathead now starts up and has 115-120 lbscompression. Yet.........when I excelerate the second carb is not getting any fuel causing the vehicle on the road to severly bog down. I dismantled the carb and cleaned the enternal parts and cheched the excelerator pump, looks like it had been rebuilt, yet the second carb will not pump fuel when excelerating. I don't know what the fuel pressure and volume should be for a two car set up, yet the first carb seems to be working. Keep the info. coming, we'll get this old guy on the road again. Thanks so much
Might contact Ken-ct on the Fordbarn. He is a flathead carb guru and can likely help out alot more than I can. I remember he mentioning that some of the accelerator pups in some kits need some modifications to work right. Rod
I had the same issue with my `35 Ford. It had sat for over 35 years in the dry. Many parts were missing and the engine was stuck. We unstuck the engine by rocking it back and forth and put the missing parts back on it. It had compression on 6 cylinders and I figured the others were stuck valves but would free up after I got it started. It had spark, fuel and compression. I used a 12 volt battery to crank it. That didn't work so we pulled it through the neighborhood. It never hit a lick so I pulled the engine and had it totally rebuilt. It now starts with a touch of the starter button. It should have ran but didn't...
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