I am trying to bring an old engine back to life. The guy I got it from said it when from running fine to just not running. I have replaced the condenser and the points. (1st pic)I have power to the coil...with my volt meter grounded to the block and touching the positive terminal on the coil I get a reading of 14v..(battery charger is hooked to the battery so I dont run it down) When I turn the motor over I still have power to the coil...it drops to around 9 or 10 v with the engine turning over. (2nd pic)Connecting the volt meter to the negative side of the coil and to where the wire connects to the points I get a reading of 0v. (3rd pic)when I connect my volt meter to the negative side of the coil and to the points them self I get a reading of 14V. but i do not see an arc on the points when the engine is turned over. the points are gaped to .025 Yes the rotor is on. The spark has to be going somewhere. what else can I do/check?
I pulled the dizzy last night. Im going to take it apart and give it a good cleaning and make sure it is not grounded out anywhere.
you shouldnt have a power reading from the negative side to where it hooks up to the points. and the the volts are making it thru to the points. and I have tried 2 other coils. both known to be good.
Take the negative wire off the coil, take a jumper lead from the negative side of the coil and just tap it to ground, if you have juice on the positive side you will get a spark, if no spark the coil is bad. I posted this while you were responding about the two coils, but try what I said anyway.
If the points are closed or there is a short in the wire to the distributor you will have zero volts at the neg. term. at the coil. Take the wire off the coil and check term volts should be 12 if there is look at the wire to the points for a short.
Measure the voltage on the coil at the negative terminal, as you turn the engine slowly by hand. It should go from zero to 14v as the points open Does that happen?
Does coil -ve pulse or f;icker (test light) when cranking? Do you get spark from coil lead (to centre of cap) If yes to both, you either have all bad wires or cap/rotor Is the contact button in the cap still there?
If you take the meter probe and open the points with it you should read 12v with the points open zero with them closed.
Hey Keep things simpel, so you can un-fu*k them, one at the time. A multimeter is not for this kind of work, thats for complicated stuff! There are 3terminals on a coil, and thats where you start. Term. 15/battery +, Term. 1/Points and Term. 4/HT lead. Leave 15 as it is (ign. on), and disconect term. 1. Then slip a sparkplug in the HT lead, in the end from the cap, and leave it on something grounded. The put a piece of wire between Term. 1 and the battery minus. When you connect the wire the the battery, nothing. When you disconect, a spark, then your coil works. No spark, then your coil is toast. Start like that, then follow the power like that, thru the points. If everything works all the way thru them, check the HT side. And then I bet you, you will find your problem.
First off you need a 12 volt coil and if resister is needed see if you have one. get volt meter pos on batt,neg on pos coil wire key on.what the voltage.If resister should read 3 volt. next switch leads meter, neg to ground and pos to pos.If battery with no chrarger should be 12 volts so 9 volts to coil. I,m guess you have no resister. Check the ends of wire maybe held on by few strands.
Many dist. have a ground wire from points plate to the dist body if loose/broken the circut will not be compleated thru the points. Also on some cars the point wire conection has spacers/insulators on it ,a ground there equals no sparky. And what is the vehicle?
I GOT SPARK!...it was the points. I got sold a bad set. Put another set in I get this nice blue spark. I still can't get the engine to fire up. The most I have got it to do is backfire thru the carb.
If you pulled the dist. out as you said on post #3, my money is on timing being off or plug wires not installed correctly. Did we ever find out what kind of engine? Don't worry if it's "OT", it has points and you're trying to learn...
Its a small ford inline six 144. I was having all those problems before I pulled the dizzy. The problem was a set of bad points (cheap chinease parts). I've got good spark now. But the engine still isn't firing. Just back firing thru the carb
Right, if you have spark but you are getting backfires, I would check the timing carefully, and make sure all plug wires are connected to the correct cylinder. Make sure they are wired for the correct dist rotation.
See if #1 is marked on cap or look at the fisrt wire that will go to first cylinder in front. Mark dist were that wire is on cap #1 now find mark on pulley and timing mark. Turn dist and put dist in and point to mark on dist. The dist turns clockwise and put wires on in this order. 153624 if ok all wires should be right lenghts. If not you could be 180 out. That means take dist out and turn half turn and put back in.
Follow the bread crumbs my friend. First check to see if coil is good. This is done by checking the primary and secondary windings. To check take your dvm and hold the positive to the pos and the neg to the center port. take note of the reading then move the pos to the negative terminal. both readings should be the same. (coil ok) Now check continuity from neg side of coil to the points to make sure freddy kilowatt is making the trip. Next make sure the points are properly gapped.(approx .017) Now make sure that the grounding wire from the dist. advance plate to the body of the dist is hooked up and not touching the lead going to the points from the coil. Is your dist. rotor rotating? If all this is happening then you should have spark. Next pull the number one spark plug out and cover the hole with your finger and bump the starter around until the compression blows your finger off. Align the timing mark on the dampner and set dist. to #1. Make sure of direction of rotation and re check your firing order. Put #1 plug back in and start the car. Adjust timing after running. Now your ready to take your sweety for an icecream and go for a ride in the back seat. Hahahaha! Good Luck.
OK. I got spark but still cant get the engine to come back to life. I was getting backfire thru the carb but I believe that was because I had the plug wires 180. I flipped the wires, put the #1 at TDC, and I am NOT getting any signs of life out of the engine. I have even tried turning the dizzy about 10 degrees both ways in small increments with no luck. Do you guys have any ideas? When I get home today I am going to pull all the plugs and make sure each one is sparking and is properly gaped, but i dont think thats the issue.
Make sure that the rotor is pointing at the #1 wire on the cap, when the #1 cylinder is at Top Dead Center, between the comrpession and power strokes. At that point, neither of the rocker arms will be moving.
If the engine is not doing anything, first check that it has plenty of fresh gas in the carb, then double check the timing and that it's getting good spark, etc. then if it does nothing you should buy a new set of spark plugs and install them. Sometimes they get fouled from goofing around, and a new set miraculously makes it run fine, as garcoal says.
Lucky for me I have a brand new set of plugs just sitting in my Y-block. Guess i will pull them tonight, put them in the six, and see if that fixes the problem. (they run the same plug)
I had a 283 that wouldn't fire. Turned out to be the condenser. If you have a blue spark at the points and not a yellow spark, I'd rule out the condenser being bad. I really was pulling my hair out because I had purchased a new condenser that was bad out of the box. Put a used/proven one in and the 283 fired right up. I had a '64 El Camino with a 327 that wouldn't fire up because the timing chain was old/stretched and jumped a tooth. Hopefully this is not the problem with your engine. Good luck in chasing it down.
The Jalopy Journal
