Speaking of Continentals,

After catching a repeat fot the dustbowl show, and the oldtimers saying they were zapped by 'static' electricity 6 or 7 inches away from a car door, yet a few weeks ago when I discribed to a post how my neighbor started my Cockshutt...with an new, unused YT online shop flamethrower coil- and got a got spark and jolt- and the engine finally- suddenly started on the other 3- while still a few inches away from the plug, and I was called a dreamer, BS artist and liar. With several posts of facts and figures to prove my ignorance.
So could one of you number crunchers give us the technical data of static electricity??? And for further research, the Cockshutt still starts right up in this dismal weather. You can use my cat if you need one.... hey! that might save 32 bucks for another coil!! Here kitty kitty....

Lightning is static electricity, and here is my story. About 10 years ago I was stripping out the wires in an electrical panel. I was taking two of the ground wires out of the Romex and lightly twisting them together and putting them under the same screw because I was getting short on spaces. A thunderstorm was taking place at the time and lightning hit the transmission lines at the end of the driveway. These were the large lines on the towers that look like a giant with his arms holding the wires. Well anyway I was holding these two wires, one in each hand, pulled tight from the connector at the top of the panel and suddenly I heard a loud SNAP. I jumped and cussed a bit at that point. My right shoe was wet on the outside edge since I had stepped in some water outside, and my foot at that spot had a mark the size of a pinhead.

That spark had to jump several inches to hit those two twisted together wires. I have no idea as to the voltage, and I never went to have anything checked out either. Fortunately the juice had a "safe" path to get out of there.

On the subject of the tractor just starting, well I have seen that also with dads Fordson. While trying to work on it one day we hooked a battery up to the coils to make sure we had juice. At one point I hooked he battery up and everything must have been just right because it just started right up on it's own. First time I saw a Fordson with an electric start!

Fordsons AND wet shoes! you live dangerously sir... I met a guy a couple years ago- all wet from a downpour- got hit by lightning when reaching for a car door... or car got hit? either way one leg was gone the other a shriveled limb he really could barely stand on.
Someone on the MF forum got his massey started same way my 540 got going... but since I am not good at cut and paste... I have no evidence to clear my good name
My cousin is thinking about an old Fordson... I think I won't get involved....

Don't have any Technical Data but do have "OUCH" in my vocabulary.

"Someone on the MF forum got his massey started same way my 540 got going... but since I am not good at cut and paste... I have no evidence to clear my good name
My cousin is thinking about an old Fordson... I think I won't get involved"

You always say that regarding C/P..
Go to the item and blue it out with the mouse, you will see a square with an arrow pointing to 1.30..go to "edit" and select "cut".

Find your reply and click so the cursor is blinking, go to "edit" and select "paste".

Wella. [that is what I do]
XP.

No. I can not do it. I boxed your last line in blue, clicked on the arrow, and it said 'it would translate into English'. So this thing knows you are typing in 'strine mate...

Speaking of Oz... I saw a movie the chick with the rabbit skins- anna goanna? Savanna? in 'beyond the thunderdome'?... not only has she aged rather ungracefully.... she is playing the role of a complete psycopath... or however ya spell a nutter.... not often a woman in a movie can scare me into silence... but she did...crikee.... a poster child for Australian men to remain single.....

Had that same deal with the lightning running in on a house while being wired. No power lines to the house at all. Lighting hit in the area and knocked one of my guys back off a switch box he was making up. From then on if it came a storm with lightening we stopped working until bad weather passed.

old timers use to take a piece of rubber or leather and fix the plug wire about 1/4 inch from the plug that was fouling it would cause the current to jump to the plug and it would start firing again,when i was a boy we were trying to start an m farmall after an in frame rebuild and flooded it, i was told to remove the #1 plug wire and hold it about 1/4 inch from the plug one pull on the hand crank joker fired right up running on 3 cylinders because the #1 had lite me up during initial start and i dropped it,things like that one doesn't tend to forget

When I was much younger, I went to a school that had a serious work and study program. I worked in the farm shop. From time to time, until this fatefull day, the bosses kid would hang around the shop. On the day in question, I was working on a cub that would not start when little Jimmy came over to where I was working. I told him to hold this wire and let me know if the wire got warm or cold. While I was on the other side of the tractor turning the key, he started screaming really loud. His dad, my boss, came out of his office and looked right at me, as if his screaming kid didn"t even matter. I didn"t have any quick and witty things to say. All that could come from my mouth was, "I"m starting to think that this is a fuel problem". I don"t recall seeing little Jimmy hanging out at the shop after that.

Well since wee're talking about "electricity" I'll tell about my most "shocking" experience with it (electricty)! When I was about 8 or 10, the gang went swimming at the "swimming hole". there was fence, we always climbed over it, the farm house was about 1/2 mile away, anyhow, I was running a steam (of urine) along the fence when it ZAPPED me right on my butt!! All my buddies almost split their guts laughing, while I thought I would sing soprano for the rest of my life!! TRUE STORY I know I was there!!

The dielectric strength of air is about 80 thousand volts per inch. So it takes about half a million volts to generate a six inch arc. That's well within the capabilities of a large Van De Graff static electricity generator; you can buy a $100 Van De Graff that will put out 200 kV. So I find it plausible that a car in a dust storm could get charged up to 500 kV or more.

Now, I didn't see your earlier post, but here's the deal with ignition coils. Contrary to popular belief, an ignition coil is not a "step-up" transformer. It is an energy storage device, and it will generate whatever voltage is required to jump the spark gap, up to a point. That's why you can hold a spark plug lead an inch away from the plug and draw an arc, even though the normal coil output voltage is much less than the 80 kV required to jump one inch.

Now, the reason you can get a fouled plug to fire by holding the plug lead away from it is that this prevents the coil's current from being shorted out by the fouling until the coil voltage rises to a point where it will easily jump the plug gap. (I think it was John T who explained this to me, or maybe B&D, I don't remember.) You don't need a high-voltage coil to do this trick, as any coil can generate enough voltage to jump a half-inch or so.

When I was younger - was down in alabama working on fiber optic lines. They had a steel strength member running down the middle of the cable.

Any time an electrical storm came anywhere near us we had to drop what we were doing and stay away.

Storm came through one day real fast, caught us by surprise. Just as the guy on the other end of the radio was telling me to drop the lines, a pointed cut end of that steel strength member swung up and jabbed me in the elbow.

I don't know if it was electricity from lightning, or just normal current that it picks up inductively from running next to power lines hitting me hard because it punctured skin - but whatever it was gave me the strongest jolt of elecricity I ever want to experience.

Didn't cause any permanent damage that I know of but man - gave me a new respect for electricity.

Like a strong electric fence shock times 5. Everything went black for a second. Honestly don't know if it was from closing my eyes or what.

"old timers use to take a piece of rubber or leather"

Or a shirt button. Cut the wire, strip it back and wire into the holes in the button. It would arc across the center. An old guy in our neighborhood had an H Farmall rigged up like that, complete with a drippy fuel system, and grease all over everything. I always figured it would go up in flames, but it never did.