Ace-Garageguy

Anudder wun a deze. Dis wun to be dun up in Ford Aerospace kullers.

The 50% less testosterone generation. Soy boys, unite. I tend to see this as an ultimately self-correcting societal aberration, as it would seem to me to be highly unlikely any of these sporting lads will reproduce. EDIT: Of course, one should never underestimate young women's propensity to choose useless men to breed with.

Here's a lot of info on mags in general, and things that are sometimes mistakenly thought of as mags... AND SOME GENERAL FUNCTION INFO: Here is an answer I posted to this exact question on another forum a few months years back. I hope it will clear up some mis-understandings (EDIT: my organization here is poor as a general-knowledge piece, because it was originally posted as several answers to some specific questions; however, read all of it, and you should understand enough of the basics for accurate model-car work). I've posted this before. I currently build 1:1 period hot rods for a living, and I'm an engineer. This is the true and complete answer from someone with 40 years of actual experience working with magnetos, etc. A lot of old race cars ran magnetos. If they didn't have onboard batteries (to save weight) they HAD to be push-started. Mags were / are commonly run on period street / strip cars. They made a fat, hot spark at relatively high RPM before the days of capacitive discharge. A fair number of 'teens and '20s cars came with magnetos, and many early race car mags were adapted from AIRCRAFT parts. Small aircraft engines STILL use magnetos that look very much like those on '40s-'60s competition cars, and they use them because the engine will continue to run even if the rest of the electrical system fails. Small airplanes have batteries for starting, and charging systems ( generator OR alternator ) to run accessories and to keep the batteries charged for starting. TO RUN A MAG on a street / strip car, you'll need a generator OR alternator, and a battery , and a starter. You will NOT need a coil or distributor, of course. The advantage to using an alternator is that it will provide more current at lower RPM. They work better at running loads like air conditioning and lights at idle, or while sitting in traffic. Alternators began to become common in production cars in the early '60s. They appeared first on police cars because of the high electrical demands of the communications radios. Interestingly, most small aircraft alternators are adapted from CAR parts. 1) The magneto has an internal generator (sort of), points, "coil" (sort of) , and distributor cap, and provides its own spark to fire the plugs 2) A magneto does not provide enough energy to keep a starting battery charged, or to run any accessories 3) For STREET use, battery and starter motor will be required to start the engine. Old race cars (that didn't have batteries or starters for weight-saving) were push started, 'cause the mag has to be spinning to make any juice, and without a battery and starter, no spin, no juice. 4) A charging system will be required ( generator OR alternator ) to keep the battery charged and run accessories. MAG WIRING OTHER THAN PLUG WIRES: For a push-start car, you only need one small ground wire going from the mag to a kill switch inside the car. The only way to "turn off" a magneto is to ground it. For a battery start, street driven car, you could also simulate a starting-voltage booster with a small hot wire running to the mag. These would be two very small wires, much smaller than plug wires, coming out under the "cap", well away from the plug wires. The small hot wire could run to a little box on the firewall. There was also a unit called the Spalding Flamethrower, basically two, four-cylinder coil-type ignition systems in a single, usually red, case. It looks like a mag, but isn't. It had two groups of 4 plug wires on either side. Do a google image search for that. It was fairly common on really hot street cars, as was the Vertex ( Scintilla, Joe Hunt, etc.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In closing, a mag won't blow out lights as someone posted above, because it's constructed so that it's spark discharge is directed to a SPECIFIC spark plug as the magnetic field collapses, and not into the car's general electrical system. The spark is created in a magneto when the magnetic field rapidly collapses inducing a high voltage in the adjacent wire windings. The spark is directed to a specific plug by the position of the rotor in the "cap", exactly as it is directed to the correct plug in a battery-type ignition system. A magneto is timed in much the same way as a POINT TYPE battery powered ignition system is timed, to make it fire with the correct amount of ignition "lead". ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A further clarification of the actual function of a magneto vs. a distributor: An older DISTRIBUTOR does two things. 1) It tells the coil when to fire and 2) it directs the resultant spark to the correct spark plug. (Many later-model distributors ONLY direct the spark to the correct plug and have no role in establishing ignition timing). It knows when to tell the coil to fire because it has a sensor of some type, either points, a magnetic device, or an optical device, that senses the position of the distributor shaft in relation to the crankshaft (and cam). This is called "ignition timing". It can be varied by manually twisting the distributor body during tuning, or automatically by mechanical or vacuum "advance" mechanisms while the engine is running. A little wire running from the distributor to the coil carries a signal that makes the coil "fire" (resulting from a collapsing magnetic field inside the coil), and the resultant secondary current, the "spark", is directed back to the distributor by the one BIG wire in the center, and sent to the correct spark plug by the "rotor", which turns with the distributor shaft and aims the "spark" at the correct BIG wire going out. This is an oversimplification, and I've used some terms loosely, but that's how it all works in a nutshell. A rotating permanent magnet inside a MAGNETO induces a current in the PRIMARY winding, creating a larger magnetic field (an electromagnet) adjacent to the secondary winding. When the points open (they are connected to the primary winding as a timed-switching-device, and they perform exactly the same function as in the distributor workings described above, namely to tell the magneto the position of the crankshaft and cam) the current stops flowing in the primary winding. The magnetic field collapses, and the moving lines of magnetic flux of the collapsing field induce a much higher voltage in the SECONDARY winding, which is more-or-less analogous to the COIL in a battery system (with a distributor). The hot "spark" output from the secondary winding is directed to the correct plug by a rotor-and-cap and secondary wires, just like in a distributor ignition. Because the magneto is capable of producing its own primary current AS LONG AS IT IS TURNING it doesn't require a battery or generator or alternator to function, and this, again, is why you always see old mag-equipped race cars either push-started, or started with an external device, like old Indy cars. Because the battery and something to keep it charged (generator or alternator) aren't required to keep a mag-equipped engine RUNNING, there is no onboard battery to run a starter either. SO, the engine in a mag-equipped car THAT HAS NO STARTER has to be made to turn some other way, so the mag can make a spark, by pushing the car in gear, or by an external starter that spins the engine. But one more time, you CAN have a street-driven car that has a battery to start it (which spins the starter motor), a generator OR alternator to keep the battery charged and run lights and accessories, and a magneto, that does absolutely nothing but fire the spark plugs. Edited July 2, 2012 by Ace-Garageguy

The power went out about 8:30PM Friday night, after flickering several times. Heard a big crashing and then 'thump' up the street, followed by darkness. A huge old oak split right down the middle from the snow load, which was apparently made worse because the tree hadn't lost all its leaves yet (wet, sticky snow, about a foot of it here). When it went, it took out the feeder line to several transformers, including mine. Lotsa crashes and thumps the rest of the night, and one good sized limb fell on my south wall / roof, taking out the lines from the transformer to the house as well. Spent most of Saturday clearing the mess (with handsaws, as my chainsaw is down at the shop; good place for it) so the power company guys could get in. Boarded up the windows too. Lost a section of privacy fence, and another large limb that would have flattened the cab of my truck fell on the driveway where I usually park it, and another big one took out half of one of the little dogwoods when it fell. Otherwise, not much damage but a lot more limbs that need to be cleared. Sun came out Saturday, and it was beautiful here in a way you just never see in the South. Everything white and clean, heavily snow-laden trees, deep crystal blue skies. Most of the main roads were melted clear by afternoon, but everything froze solid that night, and the Sunday AM black-ice was particularly treacherous for the natives. It got pretty chilly in here, 42 F last night, as I don't run the propane burners while I'm sleeping. Kinda fun cooking on one propane burner though, making cowboy coffee, etc. Power was restored by about 7 PM Sunday night, internet came back up sometime after I went to bed. Hope anyone else in the path of this little storm escaped with as minimal real damage as I did..

...and now the National Weather Service forecast link is down.

Yeah. I'm a transplanted Yankee. I always get a kick out of the disaster effect a little snow has here. Up north, we'd put the winter tires on in October, and keep the chains hanging close to the front of the garage. Little towns had plows and sand trucks. Not many folks had 4WD, but somehow we all seemed to get just about everywhere we needed to go. Things would slow down a little if we got a foot or more. The Maritimes, huh? I spent many a blissful summer in Nova Scotia.

Man, that's beautiful. I spent a lot of time in Canada as a kid, and really loved it up there. I'm about 15 miles north of Atlanta, and 1" here will bring the city to its knees. Ought to be closed for about a week if this keeps up. There's been a narrow band of snow over my little town since this AM, moving north-east, and it's moved south enough to take in the city too. They're probably calling it Snowpocalypse '17 or something. http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/weekend-update-buford-calloway/n45830?snl=1

Nice.

Power's down across the street, and I can hear the standby generator for a nearby cell tower running. I've heard a couple more large limbs go, so it's probably just a matter of time til I'm in the dark. Radar looks like we'll be getting snow most of the rest of the night. Probably time to break out a couple of wool sweaters and the sleeping bag. Think I'll make a pot of coffee while I still have power too. Can always heat it up on a gas burner. G' night all. ...and this is REALLY funny. I just got an email from the local power provider informing customers that the online and phone power-outage reporting services are down. Preparedness is job one.

The snow / ice load is starting to take limbs and trees down now. End of my road is blocked, and a bunch of large limbs are down all over the lot. A couple of friends have called on their cells to tell me their power is down too. So...glad I got all my tanks of propane for the backup heaters and cooker. Plenty of ammo, all is well.

Everything on this page is available, even, I think, a version of the old Merc diesel. 10 of the oddballs on page one aren't available, but would sure make cool one-off projects for an enterprising young man.

An explanation of the Alcubierre-White Warp Drive | AsteronX

Well dang diddly darn. I'd made a note to read it after dark, but I'm like a little kid when it snows and have been either out in it or watching it all day. It's very quiet, all the grasping, scurrying people doing mindless and unnecessary jobs they hate are safe at home in their ticky-tacky boxes, and in this neighborhood, at least for a little while, there appears to be Peace on Earth. It's just an illusion, but I'll take it when I can get it.

This is how much difference there is in the cowl height of ALL the AMT bodies, and ALL the Revell bodies (on left). After correction, the AMT bodies will look like about this at the bottom (the line could be straighter, less fish-bellied) but you still need to re-scribe the door lines.

A lot of clear cases come with small holes in the "floor" that are intended to be used for tying models down. Fine wire is the material of choice, looped around the axles or frame, and allows the model to be removed relatively easily should the desire arise.

The SINGLE most important piece of advice here, and by all means, ASK if you're not sure of something.

One of the things I love about this hobby is that it affords so much opportunity to learn: vehicle mechanics, physics and chemistry, electricity and electronics...all available to anyone who has the interest to go beyond gluing parts together.

Well, not really. On some engines, the "slot" is only the oil pump drive, and fits a tang on the lower end of many common V8 distributor drive shafts. All you have to do to change the location of the "slot" is stick a long flat-blade screwdriver down the distributor drive hole and twist. It may take a couple of tries to get it right, however, so that the tang slips in the oil-pump shaft just as the distributor drive gears engage the cam. On Mopars that are built backwards, where the slot on the oil pump drive gear engages a tang on the distributor shaft to drive the distributor, you can orient the oil pump gear with the slot anywhere, if the valley is open. And some Mopar engines will allow you to pull the distributor drive shaft up and out of the pump, enough to rotate it as necessary. Again, re-engaging the oil pump (there's a hex-drive on the pump end of the shaft) can be tricky, but it's easy enough. And even if you're stuck with the rotor only pointing in one direction, you can still rotate the distributor body to place number one anywhere relative to the body. Even the "slotted" and offset drive on VW and Porsche flat fours can be tricked into letting you put the distributor in virtually any position. I've built more than a few engines, you know.

...but it seems folks have finally learned something, and most of them stayed home this morning.

You must be in the Miss America contest. Wait...do they even HAVE that anymore?

My last cat friend for 14 years seemed to know the things that were absolutely verboten. She did all the entertaining and affectionate and mischievous things cats do, but never once got up on any of my model work areas (that I knew about), never did any damage, and I never had to lock her out of any rooms. She was a stray, and was always the indoor-outdoor kind of cat, so most of her shredding and hiding things and chasing energy got worked off outside. Smart cat.

I never knew about that one. Cool.

Here's another excellent point: in the real world, you can put #1 anywhere on the distributor cap, so long as all the rest of the wires are in the correct relationship to it. This can be helpful in tight engine swaps, for instance, where you might have a big vacuum advance can that causes a clearance issue. Simply roll the engine to TDC firing (not overlap) on #1 cylinder, rotate the distributor to where it physically fits, start wiring with terminal #1 wherever you want it...maybe to take advantage of the lengths of the plug wires you have. The POINT is, to be correct on a non-factory setup, the #1 position on the cap as shown on the firing-order references is NOT carved in stone.

Ford-built 32-valve head setup for the smallblock, though never series produced in significant numbers...

Valve cover for the Arias big-block Chevy hemi conversion...