Can you have a coil AND points?

Ever had any problem with the pertronics? Do they even have 'em for my car? I plan to drive this car damn near every day, road trips with the fellas too! So I want RELIABLE! Like I said, I fix, shine, and drive 'em! If you see my car on a trailer it is 'cause it broke down! lol

 

It's been a debate for yrs about points verses electronic,At least you can generally fix a problem in a points system on the side of the road with minimal spares and tools,It's not like that when electronic ****s itself.That said the old saying for electronic is Set it and Forget.
PS,love the Gr***hopper crack!!

 

32's a great age, i was born in the late 50's and served my time as a mechanic in the 70's on cars with points and simple things like pushrod,carbs and chains not belts. Have fun. JW

 

Pointless, this whole thread

 

Henry Ford, for one. Thought it was easier on the points.

 

No ****! That is what it was doing above 2krpm! Good to know! Thanks Bill! Steve

 

A little off of the topic, but 30 years ago I thought a 48 Packard was one of the ugliest cars I'd ever seen. I have since grown to appreciate the elegance and beauty. Now, I think they're cool as hell. That's a really nice ride, my friend. I'd own it...oh hell yeah!

 

Thanks! I love it! Gona treat her right! And yeah I heard that back in the day people called them "bathtubs" and generally hated on them, crazy how the times change. I bet if you took a new Corvette back then they would have thought it was a turd (fast turd) too!

 

Points are pretty simple. The best thing to learn about them is that they ****. Convert it to electric and never look back.

 

The coil is an autotransformer, in essence a mini Tesla coil. How cool is that?

The points close and current flows through the primary winding, creating a magnetic field.

The points open, and the primary coil loses current flow. This causes the magnetic field to collapse. A collapsing magnetic field is a moving magnetic field.

Moving magnetic fields generate electricity. It's how a generator works.

The collapsing magnetic field induces a current in the secondary winding. Careful selection of the turns ratio (number of turns of wire in the primary coil vs. the secondary coil) allows this collapsing magnetic field to indice a voltage much higher than that in the primary circuit. Bingo, enough to fire a spark plug.

The primary circuit sees 6 or 12 volts and a few amps. The secondary sees some 15,000 volts with a tiny fraction of an amp.

Power in = power out (less the inefficiency of the coil) IOW low volts/high amps = high volts/low amps

It is an elegant system.

 

Have to agree with this. Now that old style condensors are no longer used in daily drivers the quality seems to have taken a dive. I run a club for an OT old car and members commonly report brand new condensors failing (you know that because the engine pops and bangs and there's no power). I now fit a Boyer Brandsen transistor unit - it does away with the condensor and takes the high tension load of the points - so they last for 25,000 miles or more.

 

DAMM! all you "old timers" can put away the blue pills because on a "woodless night" just have your old lady whisper "POINTS" in your ear and you can relive your youth!

 

I yanked the HEI out of my truck and went back to a points distributor. I don't know why, but I like points.

Also, after a nuclear explosion (and the resulting EMP), my vehicle will still start and run. Then, Keith Richards and I can go for a ride.

I've never heard of this. Tell me more.

 

Boyer Brandsen have been around since the 1960's. Their transistorised units are widely used in the US on British bikes. They also do a unit for cars. It's small, includes a timing light and is easily wired in very discretely. Costs about £25 over here and a little more over with you.

http://www.boyerbransden.com/IDunits.html

 

Re: the grease Rusty O'toole mentioned in post 46
That needs to go on the bback side of the rubbing block that rides on the cam of the distributor shaft. That way it provides lubrication all the time.

 

This!^^^^

 

If you want a good condenser buy one from an electronics store not an auto parts store. The new ones are much better than the ones from the seventies and earlier. Look up the impedence (microfarad) value and get one to match.

 

cool deal. Thanks!

 

So I pulled one of the new spark plugs, put its wire back on it, held it against the exhaust manifold, had my son crank 'er over and VIOLA, nice strong spark! Sooo from the NOTHING that I know about points I would say that they are still doing their job by the time the spark has made it to the plug, correct? I hear the electronic fuel pump prime like it always does, and no bang? The starter sounds wierd/different to me than it did, and this is when the no starting thing started, about how fast should it be cranking my motor over? My fan seems to turn about 1 - 1 1/4 full turns per second, is that about par for these '49 Packards? If it turns AT ALL (regarless of how slow) and HAS spark it should fire right? I dumped a few gallons of fuel in the tank just to check that possibility off of the list, even tho I filled 'er up and only farted around town for two days so it shouldn't be empty, fuel is about the ONLY fluid that she holds best I can tell! Gave it about 1/2 squirt of Ether and one little poot, another squirt, nada, one more squirt, still nada. Any guesses? Steve Also I put new gas and filter a week ago. bout to go pout some gas in the carb.

 

Thanks for all the info!!! I was having issues as well and have been playing with the points/timing on the Mallory in my flat head. The Mallory has the 2 piece cap. Anyone know what this Mallory would have come out of? And what should the Gap be on the points when open? I set at .018, Was told this should be good. Any suggestions?

 

1-6-2-5-8-3-7-4 I checked the wires and they are right. Hey, not that it matters in this situation but I would just like to know, what direction does the rotor turn on these? But so I poured some gas in the carb and nada, didn't even try to fire. I have air, spark, fuel (added manually just to make sure), the plug wires are still in the correct sequence, I did not mess with the timing AT ALL I did start to adjust the choke some but I have since put it back where it was till I get this issue figured out, but that shouldn't affect anything with the spark. I even held the choke open some with a screwdriver and it did not change anything. I AM STUMPED fellas.....

 

Is your battery fully charged? Makes a big difference with a six volt system.

 

A word to the wise about using ether. Get her rolling over before you give it a little shot. Ether can make a big lump outta your 8 if you're not carefull.
Also bunch of info here too!
http://packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/article/

 

There is a litheum battery inside the condenser did you change that also?did you get the .030 over sized points?

 

I get a kick out of some of you badmouthing points , my '73 chevy work truck [dump] still has points & has close to 400K miles , it's never let me down & I change 'em when I think of it [not too often!!]
dave

 

I would suggest that you pull the distributor to change the iner parts. Once you get over the initial scarry part about pulling it you will realize how easy it would be to drop a small screw or nut down into it while trying to work on it inthe car. Its is a pretty easy deal and makes installation and gaping of points a breeze. and while its out you chan check to see if there is a lot of slop in the shaft bushings, whic if there is will effect timing dwell and drivability.

Remove the distributor cap with the spark plug wire attached and move it aside.

remove the wire from the coil to the points serminal on the side fo the dist.

note the position of the rotor and make a mark on the dist body edge indicating where it is pointing.

Note the position of the vacuum advance dash pot as it relates to the block and make a reference mark. Thse two items will ***ure you put the ***embly back in correctly.

Now loosen and remove the bolt that clamps the dist to tthe block. Then you ca pull the dist out of the block. While it is out DO NOT allow the engine to be turned over as this will screw everything you did to mark the position of the dist to the engine.

Now you can put the dist onthe bench or in a vise and do the points installation and gapping procedure with cood light and proper work angles.

the most improtant thing is that you can put the points block squarely on top of a cam lobe and ***ure the gap is precise, ad you can get the lubricant where it wil do the most good.

Putting it back in is just a matter of alingning the dist body to the block and then the shaft and rotor back in the correct orientation. Most of these engines had a simple drive tang on the end of the dist and are driven by the oil pump. They do not have the drive gears powered by the cam. Not a packard expert but it is usually the case. Which means either the shaft is correct or 180 off.

Once you have the point changed and the rotor and cap back on and the dist clamp snugged back down we can talk about setting your timing with a vacuum gauge.

 

Thanks!

 

you are probably confusing points and a magneto, the points are what opens and closes the circuit to make the coil fire, in a magneto setup there is no coil