KR wilson timming helmet dist.

[41panelmark]

Is anyone making a suitable replacement device for timing the helmet distributors?

I would like to be able to maintain the darn thing myself.

thanks guys.

[Russ/40]

Do a search on the "Ruler Method" for timing those distributors. It can be done with two rulers, a few wires battery and a bulb. It is actually a very accurate technique for distributors in good shape. ie - good bushings and points. Only a distributor machine will catch worn and defective parts. Also, check eBay, as I have often seen some very simple NOS timing devices that utilize a wheel, pointer, bulb and battery. A "Bear" one comes to mind. I have a small collection of old production simple units.

[Randy]

This is pretty interesting:

http://www.btc-bci.com/~billben/dizzy.htm

I bookmarked it for future reference, but haven't tried it.

[Mark Slight]

Ford Motot Co. never made a dizzy!

They did however make distributors.

[41panelmark]

Thanks guys, this will be a start for now.

[Hoop]

Sponsored Links (Register now to hide all advertisements)

Be careful what you read.

(First, do a search for "Wilson Timing")

Each fixture/machine/method has its own capabilities/weaknesses. The KR Wilson device does a great job if you understand how to use it. I've lurked other forums and recently found one guy absolutely condemning the KRW ... when it's obvious he's never used one and he admits it.

The "Ruler Method" only sets the initial advance. That's all. If you use that method combined with some feeler gauges, you will have roughly set point gap and initial timing BUT have no clue what the total dwell is. Total dwell is what you're after with a dual point distributor.

A "Sun Machine" will set dwell individually for each set of points and for total dwell. (As will the KRW.)

(Time out. I think the coffee is ready.)

The Sun also will uncover problems such as point bounce, worn bushings, etc. BUT, if you're really careful, you can also detect many of these problems without the Sun.

Big thing with the Sun is that you can see the advance through your entire RPM range. If you want to be certain of just how well your distributor is advancing at speed, this is it. Poor performance often can be tracked back to poor (or NO!) advance. Modifying the advance curve is one key to higher performance for many engines ... this is the Sun's strength.

It cannot set the initial advance like you can with the rulers or the KRW ... if someone knows how, please post it.

Also, do not under-estimate the earning potential of an official Sun Distributor Tester. "Back in the day" your local auto repair shop could collect a premium for setting your distributor up on a high tech device (flashing strobe lights and all) ...

Recently I came across a brand new. modern, replacement set of points and installed them using a KRW. Individual point dwell was set, but the total dwell was way, way out. The points were so poorly manufactured that I could not adjust them without filing the rubbing block, etc., etc., which I did not do and tossed them aside. Using the ruler method and feelers, I'd never have found that, and the guys car would have run like dookie.

Maybe the best advice about the different methods is that you should understand what the distributor has to do and how it works. Then see if the machine/method handles that. Be careful what folks tell you ... sometimes we know what we're talking about. Other times ...

Finally, and to answer the question, nobody is reproducing the KRW. The KRW does a fine job and that's why they are still in such demand ... not simply because they make nice collector items. In the past there were a pretty good number of decent copies.



Also as Russ mentioned, some very simple devices were offered:

[FORTY]

Have A MINT orginal unit $400 Bruce [email protected]

[Bruce Lancaster]

Somewhere on here I posted ruler instructions for the helmets...I don't think Ford ever published a ruler method for them, though they did publish the ruler method as a field expedient for the '42-48. For the helmets, the system can be derived from a Ford patent covering a static timing fixture that Ford actually proposed as a permanent fixture welded to car firewall...
The fixture was essentially the same thing as the cheap aftermarket timing fixtures of the '30's, the ones that are just a slotted plate and a lightbulb.
Hoop's boxed "very simple" dwell checkerouter looks functionally identical to the one provided by Bear/NAPA/Echlin and shown in the readily available "'32-36" repair manual, which is a reprint of a 1930's NAPA manual. It can be replicated from a plastic protractor and a test light...I posted on one I made as an experiment using a Home Depot protractor from and angle gauge on the HAMB. Between the two widgets you have a pretty fair replication of the KRW, though not nearly as nice to use.

[Hoop]

For those who refuse to learn how to use the SEARCH function on this site, you may be missing some important historical background on the KR Wilson Timing Fixture.

I had always understood that the original fixture was found aboard a captured German U-boat off the New Jersey coast. Turns out ...



... that Bruce had uncovered highly-guarded information in the basement vaults of a small, obscure New Jersey college library who's heraldic name suggests a connection to protection long before the Third Reich.

He posted:

"Ford designed his point plate from a design by ignition guru Marion Mallory, who in turn stole it from from the "Vitruvian Man" plan by an Italian engineer named Leonardo brought back to the USA after a Europen trip by Thomas Jefferson; Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin cracked the basic principle encoded in the drawing and left their hand written notes on the back of the original...all named parties above were 95th degree Masons, and the Masonic underground was instrumental in the multi-century connections. Ford of Germany (the Cologne branch) folded to Nazi pressure and spilled the design to the War office...the Enigma machine was actually 4 1942 Ford distributors colletted to a single shaft in a German-manufactured box.
Despite three years of increasingly high tech work by first Polish then British mathmaticians and physicists, the code was only partially broken, until in early 1943 a British Ford mechanic drafted into the RAF and working as the night janitor at Bletchly Park noticed an oddly familiar drawing on Sir Henry Tizard's desk...
The captured submarine was just a cover story put together by the Masons, who wished to maintain absolute international trust."

We have a lot to thank Bruce for ... including his current investigation of the strange coincidence that certain crop circles have central angles and segments of exactly 22 1/2 degrees.

[FlatheadTed]

The setting tutorial by the NZ guy is interesting ,his idea may work if you have a good set of points close to Ford specs ,but like has been said,it doesn't deal with the advance curve or dwell .I would set the left set facing the radiator at about 18 and the right at 14 . Few people address the detail that a Ford apprentice would be subject to when he was trained on setting the Ford distributor .

[Bruce Lancaster]

Dwell checking the points via KRW or other degree wheel kinda checks quality of the point geometry...
If points are correctly made, the initial gap setting should result in dwell of the individual points being close to correct when first checked
check the points separately for dwell, then check both together and correct individual dwell should result in correct or realdamnclose total dwell.
Checking everything against everything else is pretty much required now that we have access to randomly made points from some repro sources. Good quality points could be gapped and everything would come out fine for those primitives with no access to machinery...there would have been few Fords running during the depression otherwise!