Technical 2 Wire Distributor Wiring Question

Was cleaning up some wiring on my T-Bucket and I undid the distributor wiring to add a grommet to it where it goes through the firewall. I took note that there was 2 wires. One marked with a yellow line going to the coil, and the other marked with a red line tied in with the 12v feed on the resistor. I wired it back the same way but was wondering if it was correct to begin with and couldn't find anything through googling. Thanks

 

Electronic, magnetic, or optical trigger.

 

Good question, I'm pretty new to this so I'm not sure but I do have a picture if that helps

 

Nope.

That is a pretty cl***ic distributor. It would have started out life with points, and then got converted.

No way to tell, without a photo, from the same angle, with the cap off.

 

Too late and rainy to get a picture right now. If points just means it has the rotor that spins and contacts each point then I'm sure it's points because I changed the rotor myself. https://media.napaonline.com/is/image/GenuinePartsCompany/NWMDC?$Product=GenuinePartsCompany/100868

 

The rotor would still be the same. It is what is underneath that, and the flyweights.

 

If it is still points, normally you would have two wires going to the resistor block. One would be your hot wire with 12 volts when it is running, and the other would go to the other side of the resistor, the side that has the wire
going to the distributor with reduced voltage. This wire would normally run from the small extra terminal on your starter solenoid (at the 9am position) up to the distributor side of the resistor to allow for a full 12 volts of juice for starting purposed, in theory making it easier to start with a hotter spark.

 

If it's a points distributor and you have a tach; possibly the "yellow line" wire is it's feed wire. The "red line" wire may just be your ignition power wire since it feeds the ballast.

 

Without knowing what the wires both connect to inside the distributor, we can only guess....

 

Took me awhile but here she is

 

probably wired up right. Now you know what you have, wasn't that fun?

 

Actually no I think it's wired wrong. I only have 1 wire coming off the ignition switch going to the resistor/coil, but Ive got bigger fish right now like I pulled the heads off and I think I have a cracked cylinder wall. So ill have to come back to this problem. Thanks though this will come in handy sooner or later.

 

The "start" resistor byp*** wire on GM cars from the late 50s to 1974 comes from the starter, not the ignition switch...so you might have the correct wiring after all? need more info about what's on the car to know for sure.

 

Ok I understand now, that's what the R on the starter solenoid is for. It was never hooked up.
My switch is a 4 pole from AutoZone Bat. Acc. Run. Ign. I think. So I would have to run my 2nd wire from either Ign on the switch or R from the solenoid.

 

The way it's wired now it just had constant full 12V

 

Since it's been converted the vacuum advance port no longer serves any purpose correct?

 

It should still work.

The electronic trigger simply replaces the points with a maintenance-free device.

 

ahhh okay I see how it works now, I ****ed on it really hard until the thing started to move....

never thought id say that sentence..

That was also never hooked up, man they really didn't give a **** whoever put this car together. Guess I get to learn while I fix things along the way.