after having a chance to work on the 46 today,still having starting problems, after it runs awhile..i put a new condensor on today,ck the volts at the coil with ign on 3v, started right up, after 5 min, started running like ****, then died, ck voltage at coil then. 6v, wouldnt start....removed resistor used a jumper wire with the batt,and a volt meter 6v,whats wrong, bad resistor.or what....
I've had this happen too it was the coil, it would heat up and cut out once it cooled down it would start up again. Mine would run longer than 5 min. though, I say try a new coil.
Your resistor drops the voltage from 6 volts to 3 volts as the current goes through the coil to ground. Think of the resistor as a valve in a water line that is part way open. If the winding of the coil is open there is no path to ground so the coil sees 6 volts, instead of 3, just as if the resistor wasn't there.
The resistor reads 6 volts because the coil is not drawing any current. As you stated you have about 3.5 volts when the car runs this because there is current flow throught the resistor and coil primary. No current through the coil primary no voltage drop across the resistor. The coil only draws current when the points are closed. IF the coil primary is open then no voltage drop or if the points are open no voltage drop. To check the coil when it won't fire remove the dist negative wire ground it and see if there is a voltage drop across the resistor, also when you remove that ground wire the coil will fire if it is good.
i see so bad coil, it ran great ,then just like someone pluing plug wires off one by one, until it died...
Yeah my guess would be the coil, they get hot and open up sometime when they fail. If you did the test I mentioned previously. You see this failure alot on the old ford web site the coils were known to fail like yours.
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