Left ignition switch on
 

Hello all, have a 41 stock, everything working good till I left my ignition switch on, probably on for days….now I get nothing, no electrical at all…what did I blow, and could it have fried my points?….thanks for any advice!

Re: Left ignition switch on
 

fried points/ burned coil, friend ign resistor are some of the main concerns

Re: Left ignition switch on
 

Have you charged the battery?

Re: Left ignition switch on
 

I did that on my 37 last year for about 15 minutes. Melted the coil but luckily nothing else damaged.

Re: Left ignition switch on
 

Send the coil to Skip Haney and the distributor to one of the people here that sets them up on machines and learn from your mistake. If it now doesn't have any voltage at the coil, replace the resistor. It should give you lots of good service after this.

Re: Left ignition switch on
 

The battery is flat dead, tried to put a charge into it but didn’t seem to take a charge, will try another battery tomorrow

Re: Left ignition switch on
 

Check and see, if the points were open, the ignition system should be OK, I think.

Re: Left ignition switch on
 

================================================

Connect a set of jumper cables from a known good battery,
(even 12 volt should be OK) pos to pos post, neg to neg post
to get some juice flowing in to your dead battery.

After 1/2 hour, dis connect the jumper cables and then hook
your charger up and hopefully your battery will take a charge. ;)


.

Re: Left ignition switch on
 

Lanny, we don’t often see you post here anymore, but when we do, we can count on your advice to be good!
…Oh, by the way, us ketchup lovers gots to stick together, right? 😋

Re: Left ignition switch on
 

Try getting one of these for the future, the bottom one is a Cole-Hersee switch made in the USA, they show up on eBay frequently. Avoid the Chinese Amazon versions. Mine is mounted through the firewall on my ’41 and I just reach under the dash to switch it off.

Re: Left ignition switch on
 

OR another way of doing it is just disconnect the "hot" side battery cables as soon as you get home and in the garage. Also its cheap insurance IF you keep a battery maintainer on your battery from current flowing into the car while your not driving the car.

Re: Left ignition switch on
 

If your like me, if i forget the ignition switch i will sure forget the battery disconect switch. dont get old if you can help it.

Re: Left ignition switch on
 

Re: Left ignition switch on
 

Just removing the hot battery cable is the "SURE fire" way, OR "SURE NO-FIRE" way. AND fire with at least a "dual" meaning.

Re: Left ignition switch on
 

I did that once with a Model A "pop out switch" that didn't seat. It didn't toast the coil but burned the end off the wire attached to the coil. New wire end and it started right up.

Re: Left ignition switch on
 

I put a hard charge into the battery, I got lucky, the engine fired up and ran normal, still wiping the sweat off my head, as I had just had the helmet distributor completely gone through new everything and Skips coil,,,,thanks for everyone’s input!!,,,,oldbugger……too late I’m already there😝
Mike Mickelson St.Paul Mn

Re: Left ignition switch on
 

Great news and great to hear. Congrats

Re: Left ignition switch on
 

your lucky day, enjoy!

Re: Left ignition switch on
 

Note: If the battery is completely dead, a so called "smart charger" can not detect the state of the battery and will not start to charge it. Too smart for its own good. If the smart charger has a battery maintenance function (trickle charger), you can put that on for a few hours; that will put enough charge on the battery for the smart charger to work. Or you can do what I did an buy an old dumb charger (Western Auto) to get the totally dead battery started.

Re: Left ignition switch on
 

I put my battery cutout switch under the battery tray on my 41.

You can't see it, and it has put me into a routine of a quick visual on the engine bay before and after taking her out.