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EFV-8 Club Forum / General Ford Discussion / Crab Distributor: spark plug cable loom

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Discussion Topic: Crab Distributor: spark plug cable loom

lance99

05-23-2019 @ 2:31 PM

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Thanks for the replies. I’ve since downloaded the Ford Green Book from the Ohio club (didn’t know it existed). It’s a great resource.

On my ‘48 I tried to stay with the stock setup and ordered new plug wires from Drake. Had an extremely hard time making the near 90 deg turn out that is required of the wires inside of the dist cap. The new wires all cracked and was hard to keep continuity. I installed the wires in the looms and bench tested and after much fiddling was able to get continuity on all cables, but once installed only a few plugs fired. So decided to order the kit to modify the dist for the crab cap and ordered another set of plug wires for the crab. Much easier as the plug wires go straight in the cap. All 8 cylinders immediately had crisp blue spark. Now just need to get an earlier set of looms to keep the wires away from the pulleys.
Thx again.

croftonfoxes

05-23-2019 @ 12:59 PM

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My '48 originally had the rabbit ears, but the guy who had the car before me had put on a crab. For me the HT leads never sat correctly and the coil wire was getting grazed by the fan belt. When my distributor gave up the ghost and I had to replace it, I went with restoring the rabbit ears and the loom tubes. IMO, I think the rabbit ears look considerably better than the crab. However, that is just my taste....

P.S. For me, in order to replace my distributor, I had to take everything off of the front of the engine. Fan assembly, generator, and belts. I then had to completely pre build and pre string both looms before I could put the whole thing back on the engine. Not a hard job, just really fiddly...

This message was edited by croftonfoxes on 5-23-19 @ 1:06 PM

TomO

05-22-2019 @ 8:26 AM

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The 1942-1944 V-8 engine used P/N 21A- 12280 and 21A-12281 conduits for the wires and the 46-48 used the ones with the 59A prefix. In the drawing in the Green book (page 574), it looks like the 21A prefix part is a little shorter in the front and does not use the rubber tubes.

You could try bending the brackets on your 59A conduits to direct the wires closer to the distributor and keep the wires as short as possible to keep them away form the pulleys.

Tom

lance99

05-21-2019 @ 4:32 PM

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Yes, the stock 48 had rabbit ear distributor and I have the plug wires looms from a 48.

Question is what was the loom setup for a V8 that used the crab dist. The 48 looms (from a diff style dist cap) don't seem like a good fit. What have others used for the loom with a crab dist.

Thx

51woodie

05-21-2019 @ 3:29 PM

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Doesn’t a 48 have a rabbit ear dist?

lance99

05-21-2019 @ 3:08 PM

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Looking for opinions on best loom setup for for the spark plug cables when using the V8 crab distributor.

I do have a set of 1948 looms but they don't seem to keep the plug wires adequately away from the water pump pulleys.

What was the factory setup for this?

Thank you
Lance

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