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After reading Harrier's post about spark I went out to the garage. Several years ago I bought NOS points and condensers at Carlisle. I had one NOS condenser in a drawer and one in my 54. There was a newer one in the drawer. All 3 are slightly different. All 3 are different lengths. Will all 3 work for a 53-55 6 volt Ford truck? Provided that the shiny one was not made of Chinesium and is good.
I would imagine it wouldn't matter, the capacitors don't care what voltage they're at so long as they don't exceed their maximum rated voltage (which is probably way above 12 volts, around 600 volts) and ignition capacitors tend to be the same or similar capacitance. the different length is likely just manufacturing differences rather than different values, we can actually make these capacitors a whole lot smaller now but they are just kept big like that to fit into the clamps of the old systems, here is the exact same capacitor but what i use in antique tube radios (0.22 uF / 600VDCV)
Last edited by Midnight1; Mar 7, 2026 at 02:47 PM.
I called around today to find condensers. NAPA which probably has them was closed. So for kicks and giggles I called Advance Auto and Auto Zone. The young guys that picked up the phone..... well I had to explain what they were and where they went. Of course they didn't have them. One guy said I should call Tractor Supply. They will have them for small engines.
So is that true.? Will condensers for a small engine work in our trucks? Perhaps the guy at Auto Zone knows more than I give him credit for.
So is that true.? Will condensers for a small engine work in our trucks? Perhaps the guy at Auto Zone knows more than I give him credit for.
I want to say yes, my hunch is that anything under 0.5 uF should work, all its doing is absorbing some of the electrical energy to stop the points from burning, I know when I was winding ignition coils for Briggs and Strattons the condensers fell in the 0.19 - 0.23 uF range, a common practice for antique small engines with weird condenser designs or people super **** about originality is to cut it open and stuff one of those radio capacitors in my previous photo in, so use this info as you wish (if you get a small engine one make sure its not the briggs style with the points built in *wink*)
on my 66 I ended up putting a condenser that was not correct to test if that was the problem by connecting it "temporarily" on the outside of the distributor because it connected differently, it did the trick and that was over a year ago, there is nothing more permanent than a temporary fix that works.
My local O'Reilly had them. I ordered several off Rock Auto, they were cheap. No telling how they will last.
I was going to buy points from Rock Auto on the same order, but shipping increased by $5 for that one item making it just as cheap to get them local. So that's what we did today.
Now Sam's truck starts briefly. The carb leaks so we were just pouring gas down the carb which doesn't do to well.
In the old days when our trucks were fairly drivers and work trucks, how often were condensers replaced? At every tune-up?
Cap and rotor, plugs, points and condenser was considered a complete tune up, along with a check of the timing "back in the day". The parts were cheap and it wasn't hard to do, and you knew you had all new parts in it to last 6 months or so.
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