No fire

[tshancock]

Okay. I'm working on a 36 Cabriolet. I have replaced the original distributor with a 11A rebuild from third gen. I also went with the different coil setup. Still 6 volt positive ground. I have bypassed the resister under the dash. I have 6 volts at the coil with ignition on. My ignition source for the coil is the same wire that was used for the old setup. It also showed 6 volts prior. The positive terminal for the coil is grounded to frame and the neg is using the fore mentioned ignition source wire. I have no spark at the plug. Love some ideas.

 

[hueyhoolihan]

Okay. I'm working on a 36 Cabriolet. I have replaced the original distributor with a 11A rebuild from third gen. I also went with the different coil setup. Still 6 volt positive ground. I have bypassed the resister under the dash. I have 6 volts at the coil with ignition on. My ignition source for the coil is the same wire that was used for the old setup. It also showed 6 volts prior. The positive terminal for the coil is grounded to frame and the neg is using the fore mentioned ignition source wire. I have no spark at the plug. Love some ideas.

i might test the power to the coil with my multimeter while cranking over the engine, to see if points are opening and closing the circuit. it should open and close on every compression stroke of any piston. if not the coil will not produce a spark. should probably be two or three times every two seconds or so. don't quote me on the frequency of the opening and closing as it depends wholly on the speed of the cranking.

BTW, what's different (as mentioned in the first post) about the coil setup?

 

[38 coupe]

Before installing an unknown distributor and coil I like to bench test. My setup is a bit ghetto, with a spark plug gently c-clamped onto a distributor ear and a wire with alligator clips going from a rotor tang to the top of the plug, but it gets the job done. Occasionally I find a combo that doesn't spark and go through the normal troubleshooting steps common to points, coils, and condensers.
FYI, have you tried swapping in the old condenser that was working?

 

[koates]

tshancock. You say that the positive terminal of the coil goes to ground. I hope it does not go directly to ground. It has to go to ground through the distributor contacts first. Regards, Kevin.

 

[Bob C]

X2 what Koates said.

 

[JayChicago]

Koates is one of our resident electrical experts. He has diagnosed your problem.

 

[Pech33]

I assume you have the remote coil like my car had when I bought it. The wire from the ignition went to the negative side of the remote coil. The positive wire from the coil went to the distributor as shown in the picture. I replaced the coil setup with a Skip Haney coil and went back to the original wire through the resistor. Works fine.

 

[petehoovie]

I assume you have the remote coil like my car had when I bought it. The wire from the ignition went to the negative side of the remote coil. The positive wire from the coil went to the distributor as shown in the picture. I replaced the coil setup with a Skip Haney coil and went back to the original wire through the resistor. Works fine.