Projects I'm off to find my '30 Roadster in the Basement.

Wish that was my car, I just posted the photo because the front axle looks so right. If you have the same scoops who made them? Thanks. Bob

 

You have all the cool stuff

 

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Bob I don't have a clue who made them, but I did buy them here.

Thanks Owen.

 

No, not mine, just posting it because the top looks real nice. Bob

 

Jeepers, I thought you were done. I was going to ask who wired it for you.

 

I'm at full speed on the Hupmobile, even sent in for Hershey registration today. Wiring killed my interest in the other projects. Bob

 

Will this be our shopping cart?

 

Yes, Two ice cream cones at a time.

Bob

 

Very cool, Bob. JW

 

little Bobby looks happy, too.

 

So its entered in Hershey, will it be sans wiring on have very little? JW

 

One wire to the mag, that I'm sure of. Bob

 

Ahhh, Bob there two wires in the picture.

 

Yes, 50-50 chance of getting it right, and I don't understand the switch either.

 

Don't say there's two, don't listen, Bob there IS ONLY ONE WIRE.........carry one. JW

 

looks like the wire BURNED.. lol

 

First thing I did after taking that photo was put the wire outside in the scrap pile. On or off it still makes contact with all the brass. NOTHING electrical is understandable to me.

 

That's sweet. Love it.

 

Everything electrical is powered by smoke.

 

One contact is for RUN and other would ground it for OFF, that's how i see it working. As long as the two separate contacts cant touch the moving arm at the same time it will work. JW

 

I've worked on a few very early Mag cars.... I would bet one wire goes to chassis ground, the other goes to the Mag. The Mag only produces spark if the wire to it, is NOT grounded. To shut the engine off, that switch grounds the wire to the Mag.......In other words, the engine "should" run with no wires at all, but then you can't shut the engine off.

Some early switches are more involved, as some cars had a dry-cell battery ignition, but also had a position to run off the Mag when the dry cell died. As I recall on a 1906-09 car that was here, the owners manual said the dry cell was good for about 50 miles, then you needed to buy a new one at any hardware store.

The real early cars I've worked on as barn find start ups...the most confusing part was the oiling system. They were all very different. One had a oil tank that worked on exhaust pressure, I think it was an 06 Ford N or S.

Some were a ''total loss system'', and the oil was run through and then out on the ground.

I always researched these oiling systems before running the engine.
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By how much? Stick welding will arc when fairly far away from what you plan to weld.

 

It needs to be good solid contact at the brass contacts to kill the Mag. It won't jump an arc.

 

Low voltage, they knew what they were making. House switches can have much the same gap. JW

 

I thought the spark plugs were high voltage.

 

They are on the other side of the coils. JW

 

No coils just the mag.

 

Thats what makes a mag work. JW

 

That is a simple Mag to work with. It's likely a Bosch or American Bosch.

The red arrow down at the bottom of it, points to where there is a round "points-housing". It should have one swinging metal hold-down lever thing that holds the round "points cover" on. On the cover, there will be a terminal to hook the wire from the dash switch. Often the cover retainer lever gets bumped open and the cover might be missing.


The blue arrow is where there might be the model number of that Mag, stamped along the lower housing. Something like DU4..

There are 2 U shaped magnets (that is the main part of the Mag that you can see), then down lower is a rotating armature. That armature has ball bearing races that are isolated from the lower housing with thin strips of some sort of brittle insulating material. If the bearing races get grounded by an insulation failure, the mag will not work at all. That's because the armature shaft would be grounded...and on a good Mag, the wire on the points cover actually grounds out the armature shaft to shut the engine off. See? it's very simple

Magnets sometimes need to be recharged, ask around at the vintage tractor/farm equipment shows as one local guy in eastern CT goes to shows and he does Mags & recharging for a living. (first name is Mark)

If you take the mag apart, don't mess up the timing from the armature to the geared rotor wheel. I believe that brown bakelite plug wire "distributor cap" might have the cylinder numbers stamped into it?

 

Bob, I think yours is older than these but here is some Hupmobile wiring diagrams 1920-31