A friend of mine was driving his roadster and his (-) cable came off the battery, the car made a loud backfire and wont start. He since then has bought a new dist, (pertronix) and coil. I went over with my DMM and traced voltage all the way to the (+) terminal on the coil, (when the key is being turned) but it seems like the coil is not doing its job by converting the primary voltage to get spark... When taking the coil plug off the dist, and trying to ground it as to check for spark, none is emitted, any ideas? anything will be a help, oh by the way we used the coil on another vehicle, and it started like a champ, so its not the coil! thanks a million fellas!
Mr 5Trizzae...It would be very helpful for everyone to know what kind of engine and a few more bits of info,for a better acessment of problem....
If juice is getting to the coil, but no spark is comming out of it,,,,, my guess would be a bad coil.
Just curious, when you put the coil on another car did you switch the coil wire as well? I had a coil wire with an internal break that would throw a spark big time when bent around to ground it but when in its working position wouldn't do squat. Drove me nuts for better part of a day.
Check the wires to and from the coil and dist. I've seen several cars sold out of frustration that had nothing more then a single bad wire. Seriously. Vance
hhmmmmm since its a guessing game.....im gonna guess something is fried in the ignition switch.......fried the starter soleniod......or the resistor.......do need more info though is the motor turning when trying to start??.....on non-hei systems isnt there a voltage increase from the igintion, when the igintion switch is turned to start the motor????.....
You need to check for voltage on the back side of the coil and check the ground side, as well. Also, check your engine grounding straps, and Ohm out the plug wires with the power turned OFF.
On the Pertronix upgrade of a single point Delco GM distributor the ballast resistor is eliminated. So you should have 12 V from the ignition switch, in start and run, on the positive terminal of the coil. If the coil worked on another car it could be the ignition switch. Bypass the ignition switch and put 12 positive on the positive coil terminal and jumper the solenoid to engage the starter. If the starter turns over it should start. Good luck, The FOGGER
In the event that the battery is no longer a part of the electrical system, the alternator can produce unregulated voltage spikes and destroy the ignition system and various other electrical parts. You are going to end up doing a lot of testing to find broken stuff if this happened. David
Best advice here....Take out the conversion kit and put the points back in..if it runs you know you fried the conv kit.....
On a petronix I ran it still maintained the points in the system. I don't recall at this time why. If this is the same it could have still welded the points together.
thanks for all the replies to start its a small block chevy, 2ndly the resistance on the coil was as stated per the companies specs, source voltage was at the (+) terminal of the coil, yes when the other car was started the coil wires wer changed, oh and also! i forgot to say that i replaced the pertronix with the stock points type dist... i also did bypass the balast resistor, and applied straight voltage from the battery, as to bypass the ign switch. anything i missed as far as suggestions please reply again or PM me... thanks for your time fellas!
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