What is this Dixie part?

[Muzz119]

Hi, I was wondering if you would be able to help me with some information. A few years ago I was helping clear out my grandfathers workshop and came across a spark-making gadget used for lighting welding torches. I was always told it was off a 1917 Rolls Royce, but I can find no reference at all on any parts listings. The writing on it says 'Dixie 44' followed by a list of patent numbers. I think it might be a coil/distributor. It has an advance-retard lever and a set of points on a twin lift cam. Do you know what it could be or what it is off?

[Ivan Saxton]

It is a Dixie magneto. It is obviously from a single cylinder engine, probably a motor bike. I have never seen a single before, but I have fours and sixes. They are a different construction to most magnetos, in that the coil (which has low voltage and high voltage windings) is not wound on the core of the rotating element. This is significant for a magneto that has not been rewound with modern materials. One of the delights of driving an old car with a magneto was that the old insulating varnish of the coil deteriorated with great age, and it would become slightly fluid with heat, then drip, and set like glue when it cooled. Consequence was that car would be running well until lunch time, and the engine would be "seized" when you tried to restart it. If you applied undue force and determination to the armstrong starter you could break something in the magneto or the drive. Dixie does not do that. The coil is separate, and cannot leak insulation into the moving essentials. I had a coil rewound for the Dixie on the Roamer-Duesenberg, and it would throw a spark half an inch long. The car ran well, of course, but would randomly suffer complete loss of spark, explicable only by high voltage spark taking a shot cut across a surface somewhere. (I haven't taken the time to eliminate this, because I am using a different magneto for now).

One other unusal feature on some Dixies is the provision to run six volts from the battery through the primary windings when starting. Several old auto electricians have frowned when I mentioned this feature. Dixie or Aero magnetos are well explained in Dykes Auto.Encyclopedia.

Ivan Saxton