52 Windsor-fliud drive-carb-tranny circuits

Need to know how this circuit flows--where it starts,where it ends. Could it be isolated? Does it just go thru carb and tranny and back? It looks like it starts at the coil and ends at the coil??? Thanks.........52er

This is how I look at it:

1. There are two circuits: the Main circuit and the Interrupter circuit.

2. The Main circuit has two parallel loads: the transmission solenoid and the carburetor anti-stall solenoid. These loads are both energized whenever either the governor switch is closed (at low road speeds) or the kickdown switch is closed (at full throttle). The switches are in the ground side, not the hot side, of the circuit.

3. Supply for the Main circuit comes from the coil terminal where it picks up switched (-) battery voltage, flows through the circuit breaker, and supplies the solenoids through the red and brown wires.

4. When <span style="font-style: italic">either</span> the governor switch <span style="font-style: italic">or</span> the kickdown switch is closed, the yellow wires are connected to ground, completing the Main circuit to (+) battery, and energizing both the the transmission and anti-stall solenoids.

5. The Interrupter circuit also makes use of the governor and kickdown switches. The interrupter switch in the transmission closes momentarily whenever the hydraulic piston moves to complete an upshift or downshift. If, during this momentary closure, either the governor switch or the kickdown switch is also closed, the yellow wires are grounded and the closure of the interrupter switch shunts the resistor across the distributor contact points. This action briefly stops the engine from firing and relieves the engine torque so the transmission can downshift. During an upshift, both the governor and kickdown switches are open so the momentary operation of the interrupter switch has no effect.

Patch, thanks for the diagram. Doug your explantion--- I think this confirms that this circuit is isolated from the ignition switch on. My main reason is that I may be converting to 12V pos gnd, so if I was to run a voltage drop resister to keep it at 6V, where would be the best place to intall it.Using the diagram that Patch sent tell the location please. Thanks.......52er

It may not be clear from the diagram but the circuit breaker and the resistor are together in the metal box on the air filter support. Circuit breaker at the top, resistor at the bottom. If you clean off the box carefully the connections are labelled.

Put the resistor in the wire from the ignition switch to the coil and use the 6 volt coil.

Rusty, If I do what you suggest it seems that the whole ignition system would be on 6V?? I want to convert to 12V pos gnd--so doing the other wouldn`t work? I want to isolate the tranny and carb circuit to stay on 6V and the rest of the car to be 12V---lets re-check or am I off base?? Thanks......52er

Post deleted by psatchwill

Patch, this all great if in pratice it will work. I have to know for sure this is so and it will work---I only want to do this once. It would be great if anybody has done this and could report a sucess back to the rest of us---any takers?? The 12V neg gnd is ideal as the HEI dist Langdon`s sells is a drop in dist all set up for for the flathead sixes.Better starting and hotter spark would be a great improvment.......52er

If you want to use a 12 volt coil you will need 2 resistors or 2 Zener diodes to cut the voltage to both circuits.

I have no idea why Chrysler put one wire on one side of the coil and the other wire on the other side. But after working on old cars for 40 years I have learned to trust their judgement.

Post deleted by psatchwill

Guys, I think the electronic ignition needs the 12V and the starter as Patch said will work fine on 12V. Rusty if the tranny carb circuits need 6V would you put a resistor on both sides of the coil?? The other possibility of using 12V neg ground on the tranny and carb circuits solves all the problems with the wiring---this is what I hope will work---are we sure this is the case???? If the circuit doesn`t care if it`s 12V or 6V or pos--neg there should be no problem!! Again I would like to know this will work. The whole issue is the carb tranny circuits, it seems nobody has tried this, maybe we will have to be the trailblazers. Let`s break it down by components--12V coil---will 12V damage the soleniods??--should the circuit be isolated???---step down to 6V for the circuit?? Any other ideas?? Thanks.........52er

OK if you want to get all icky about it, 12 volt cars use 6 volt coils. 6 volt cars use 4 volt coils. I preferred not to get that icky.

I don't know why Chrysler chose to connect one circuit to one side of the coil and the other circuit to the other side but I wouldn't mess with it. If you leave it wired that way but put on a 12 volt (6 volt) coil you will need 2 resistors or zener diodes. If you keep the 6 volt (4 volt) coil, 1 will do.

Rusty, ya the whole thing seems to be getting icky----oh well. To bad no one has tried this before so the questions wouldn`t be flying all about. It`s been a good ride with this and a lot of good ideas have been bantered about. I will be putting all to the test soon as I am real close to finishing the re-wire---let ya all know how it turns out!! Thanks for all your help and if anyone has any more good ideas let er rip!!! 52er

52er,

I don't have any practical experience with this conversion but, FWIW, this is how I'd see it from an electrical engineer's perspective:

1. I wouldn't apply 12v directly to the 6v ignition coil and/or solenoids. The major difference between these devices and the starter is that they may be energized for long periods of time whereas the starter is only energized for a few seconds while cranking the engine. Continuously applying twice rated voltage to the coil or solenoids seems likely to overheat them badly.

2. I'd use separate dropping resistors for the ignition coil and solenoid circuits. This approach prevents the coil voltage from being affected by whether or not the solenoids are energized and vice versa.

Judging by the currents I measured in my 48 Windsor, I'd use 1.25-1.5 ohms for the ignition coil resistor and 1.5-2 ohms for the solenoid circuit. Power dissipation in the resistors will be 20-30 watts in each, so I'd recommend resistors rated at not less than 50 watts. Refering to Psatchwill's diagram, the coil resistor would be connected between the red wire from the ignition switch and the coil terminal and the solenoid resistor would be connected between the red ignition switch wire and the green circuit breaker wire.

3. An 12v electronic ignition system of course won't need an auxiliary dropping resistor for the coil, but it may have problems in getting the interrupter switch circuit to work properly. The interrupter circuit works by shunting the resistor on the circuit breaker module [12 ohms, IIRC] across the distributor contact points to momentarily kill the ignition during a downshift. It may or may not work with an electronic ignition system. I'd suggest talking with the manufacturer of the electronic ignition system to see if he thinks that circuit will work with his product.

Doug

Post deleted by psatchwill

I think the solenoids should be okay with either battery polarity. If not, it's a simple matter to reverse the polarity to the solenoids by swapping the wires since they both have two insulated terminals.

The governor is just a centrifugal switch; it won't care about polarity.

Doug

Doug, it appears that the only thing stopping the conversion is the interupter switch---if you used the old dist and ran it on 12V would there be a problem with the interupter?? The electronic set up uses all 85 GM components...........52er

52er...

It seems to me that the interrupter circuit should work properly using the original coil and distributor along with a voltage dropping resistor for the coil. The only gray area is the possibility of the interconnections between the Main circuit and the Interrupter circuit causing problems during an upshift when running a 12v system. Trouble seems unlikely to me with the 12 ohm resistor on the circuit breaker module being the only interconnection between the two circuits. If there were such problems, they could be eliminated by adding a 12v DPST automotive relay to separate the two circuits, as in the scheme used in the 46-48 cars.

I also did a Google search on Langdon and "HEI electronic ignition" to learn how that system works. From what I learned, I think the M6 transmission interrupter circuit would also work properly with that system as long as the coil is separate from the distributor (as in the Langdon system) so that the coil's distributor terminal [(-) in a negative ground system] is accessible to be connected to the interrupter switch resistor.

The HEI electronic ignition essentially just replaces the distributor points and condensor with a magnetic pickup and electronic control module. It still fires the ignition by interrupting the current to the ignition coil, as did the points/condenser system, so I would expect that the interrupter resistor would still be effective in temporarily killing the spark during a downshift.

Doug

Doug, I have a 2 ohm 50 watt for the solenoid side and 1.4 ohm 40 watt for the coil side, is the 40 watt ok?? I picked up a gen $ reg out of a 59 Ply, it has three connections on the gen, the 6V gen has only two---how to wire it is the question---checked the sheet on the 59 Ply---just a ground wire.