Re: ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF VARIOUS TIMERS

Posted by Warren Mortensen to MTFCI Forum on Sunday, 26 August 2001, at 6:50 a.m., in response to ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF VARIOUS TIMERS, posted by Norman O. Warren (Washington) on Saturday, 25 August 2001, at 10:02 p.m.

My observations only. Others have had other experiences and, as a matter of fact, so have I!
New Day: Old stock versions are a very hard bakelite material with a copper plated rotor and brass colored brush. If you find one of these in new condition it should work just fine. Reproductions seem to have varied over the years in how well they wear, some leaving a good deal of metal shavings behind as they run which eventually encourages crossfiring. Theory most often put forth is that the materials are too soft. Some of this can be alleviated by disassembling the brush, reducing the spring tension by installing a lighter coil spring (half a ballpoint pen spring works well I'm told) and beveling the leading edge of the brush to remove the sharp edge. I've seldom seen a T that will start on compression with a New Day, probably because it has a shorter dwell time on the contacts than most roller (Ford-style) timers, so the brush seldom stops on a contact. This will vary from car to car and is not a necessary quality unless you like amusing the crowd at a show. I prefer to start my car on mag and only keep a battery for long rides "just in case".

Ford script roller timers should be okay but you need to look for cracked insulators, usually where the stud passes through to the contact. If you find a case with a good insulator and plenty of material, you can chuck these in a lathe and clean them up so they run true. Roller timers of any sort tend to develop valleys and hills that eventually cause the roller to skip causing uneven firing, usually at higher RPM's (she may idle fine, but kick and buck when you rev her). Sometimes a worn roller may cause similar problems but if you have the talent, a new pin in the roller will often help. There is probably a limit as to how far you can turn out the case before the roller reaches a limit and can't expand to the new outer limit but this would be an extreme situation. Cast aluminum vs. cast iron vs. pressed steel cases is more a matter of authenticity to a certain era than a question of quality on Ford timers. If you have a '15, you need an aluminum case for judging purposes, a '17 would have cast iron and by '23 you'd want pressed steel. Don't ask me for specific dates, I don't know 'em. The main challenge here is to keep the timer well maintained with a good quality light oil. I cleaned and oiled mine every tankful of gas when running regularly, and every month if I had let it set for anything over 3 weeks just to make sure the contacts were clean.

Tiger Timers. Only buy them if they are in the box and the box says "Made in USA". These will have a dark brown insulator. Overseas units have a bright orange or red insulator and in my opinion are good for about 200 miles of driving after which you throw them in the garbage. I went through 3 of these on a trip from Minneapolis, MN to Charleston, WV in 1985 and cleaned and oiled them religiously to no avail. By comparison, I've gone through 3 New Days on this same car in the following 16 years. Some individuals who frequent this forum have had better luck lately with this brand so perhaps improvements have been made. Same wear problems as a Ford roller timer except that you cannot turn a Tiger case on a lathe to clean it up. The contact points are made by folding sheet metal over the stud and a cutting bit simply catches the edge and rips the contact right out. The roller pins used to be too soft and wore quickly also (this experience from my trip to West Virginia).

Anderson Timers. These are being made by an avid T driver to high standards and seem to be holding up well under most peoples driving conditions. I put one on my '17 when first made available and have done this unit no special favors and it hasn't given me any trouble. I pull it off every fall before putting the car up for the winter (but she doesn't hibernate all winter) and have found no problems to date. This car starts on mag even in February and I attribute this good fortune to Ron Patterson tuned coils, Russ Potter rebuild carb, clean electrical contacts and a reliable timer.

Three other items that concern ALL TIMERS regardless of your choice. 1. Electrical isolation. You must avoid any condition that will inadvertantly ground a contact when said contact should not be grounded. The most popular situation is a block-to-oilpan bolt under the timer which should be installed head up, nut down (Ford typically installed all block-to-pan bolts with the nuts on top). This bolt is often long enough to ground out #3 contact when you advance your spark. The car will idle fine when retarded but as soon as you advance the spark rod far enough you'll hear a change other than that typically caused by the advance of spark. The #3 coil will fire continuously instead of shutting off at proper times. Watch the coil and you'll see this. Other possibilities are contacts touching a timer pull rod (can happen with a sloppy linkage) and wiring harnesses installed such that the flag terminal comes in contact with ground of some sort or other. This last situation is common with New Days due to the way they're built. I attached my wires on this brand so that the wire is down against the forward side of the case rather than out at the end of the New Day tab. One other brands I make sure the wires are not going to touch the engine block in their movements. This sometines requires taking a pliers and bending them up against (or closer to) the binding nut. I'm talking electrical isolation here, ease of installation takes a back seat.

2. Path of the rotor inside the timer. If you're car has a fibre camshaft gear it is very likely that the hub is too thick in comparison to the hub on a standard Ford timing gear. Without going into great detail this puts everything on the front of the camshaft closer to the radiator on the car. However, the timer cases stay right where they belong. The roller then tracks about 1/8" forward of center on the track of a Ford or Tiger timer. This will eventually leave a ridge on the track and probably on the roller as well and does not contribute to good timer wear or maintenance. On a New Day the brush is forced forward with greater tension and wear against the front face of the case causing premature wear of the brush and case. If you find that your car qualifies for this problem, the quick fix is to remove some material from the back side of the rotor hub to allow for the difference. If the motor is apart or the timing gear cover is off, the material can be removed from the timing gear jam nut which will make future modifications to timer rotors unnecessary. A third solution is to use a metal cam gear (either aluminum or bronze replacements are available) but fibre gears are quieter which is why they are used.

3. The standard Ford seal behind the timer is a felt washer with a brass or steel disk retaining it around the cam gear jam nut. Ditch this setup and put in a modern neoprene seal available from most of the parts vendors. The felt isn't so much a problem but the disk often tends to get into places it doesn't belong and interferes with the timer's function. The timer case is supposed to hold the disk in place but the disks are often worn out and fit INSIDE the case rather than behind it. Added to this is the wear sometimes involved in the timing gear cover which aggrivates the problem. The disk will often contact the inner workings of the timer and cause two adjacent coils to fire in an overlapping fashion. Instead of a 1-2-4-3 firing order, you'll hear a 1-and-2, 2-and-4, 4-and3, 3-and-1 pattern with the second coil in each series coming on line about half-way through the series. The car may run okay, but I suspect this could cause a kick-back threat when starting the car which ain't good for either a hand cranker or a starter equipped vehicle.