exploding coil!

I tried tostart my modified todya and after a litle bit of rying to get it to fire the coil blew up! what causes that? It was a brand new coil!

 

Did you leave the key on, weith the engine off for a long time? It sounds like your coil overheated.

 

Solar flares or maybe EMI caused by Martian death rays or maybe just bad luck. Honestly, like I said, I think you probably just got a bad coil... just be thankful it didn't cherry bomb in your had while you where ****ing with it. Doing some research on line shows that the coil would have oil in it for cooling, which would explain the splatter all over your garage. Maybe some of the winding in it just shorted out?

 

Did you have a ballest resistor hooked up or just 12 volts directly to the coil. i had one blow on me when I was a kid, didn't have a ballest resistor and was told that was the reason.

 

Normally there is 12 volts going to the + side of the coil and the ballast is between the - side and the points to drop the vlotage to them.Not sure if the lack of a ballast would cause this but it's possible.Running 12 volts directly to the points usually just causes them to burn out more quickly.Another thing that will cook points quicker'n'hell is listening to the radio without using the Accessories position on the ignition switch.A lot of older cars didn't have that feature.

I had an old Mallory Magspark coil(the square kind)explode on one of my Oldsmobiles once and covered everything with oil.Put a stock coil on and never had another problem with it so it could have been a defective coil.

 

Yeah, coils are sealed up and filled with oil, so if it overheated a lot or had a short inside that vaporized some oil, then the pressure would build up enough to blow it open.

 

what does it look like inside..always wondered.

 

Quite a few years ago, I remember an accel super coil exploding. There were 4 of us standing around the engine compartment of a 56 chevy modified,trying to get it fired up. The coil exploded and several of us got oiled,but nobody got hit with the shrapnel.made quite a mess. I think it was a defective coil,as the car fired up after it was replaced.

 

If your car is wired this way, then you need to fix it!

 

i think you are correct recardo

 

I think he ment to say the wire from the dist goes to the - on the coil and the ballest is wired into the 12+ to drop the voltage to the coil so it won't explode

 

went and got a new coil, ballast is in the positive to the coil, wont start , think it has something to do with my gas fouled plugs