The Pertronix II is much more reliable than the original module. The coil resistance (Ohms) must be matched to the stated coil resistance in the Pertronix II paperwork. I don't have that information at my fingertips.
All of this stuff came on a sbc , in a car I bought, I am a points ignition guy, never had points leave on the side of the road !pretty nice stuff to selling at the swap meet , I will use it if it won't let me down !
Well you haven't driven points much if you have never had a set of points fail. LOL The pretonix unit is good enough for everyday driving. I wouldn't be worried about it. If it were mine I would carry a spare control mod. We used to carry a set of points all the time and swapping out the control mod isn't any harder than swapping a set of points.
If you think it will let you down, sell it or trade for a points dist Mine never did, but I matched the coil and wires
Mine failed and I had the correct coil but I figured out why my module failed, make certain you use a high quality copper wires. HRP
They want proper voltage (may require a resistor), good wires and a good coil. Find the original information on the distributer, follow the instructions.
Yup. Match the parts together . My first try failed within a few minutes. Wrong coil. We use them on all of our Ford engines. Never have an issue .
Good thing about points is you can change a set on the side of the road. Nothing you can do with a failed module.
You change the module. No harder than changing a set of points, you pop the cap off two screws usually and set the air gap if you are running magnetic. Easy peezy. Actually if you are running a lazer unit (the petronix is magnetic) you don't even set the air gap.
Tongue in cheek, I trust nothin' ......and carry a spare module. Fits my Chevy and my Ford. Keep it in my tool box.
I do. Doesn't take up much room. Also carry one pushrod, rocker arm, rocker nut, tire plug kit and spark plug. Funny, the '35 Chevy is the only old car I own that has a spare tire. No room in any of the '32's.
I carried a spare HEI module in the glove box of an ot rig for years and had to replace the one in distributor a few times but it wasn't a module issue when I finally got it sorted out As others said electronic mpdule failure is usually because there is another issue that caused the failure. I'm not knocking points though. back a number of years ago I helped a young family in a Dodge pickup he had borrowed from his dad to move with get the truck going on the side of the road in Wyoming by filing the points with his wife's side kick's emery board and setting them with a match book cover. They were pretty well fried but we go it going and they made it the 11 miles to Little America and would probably have made the rest of the trip without another issue.
I don't carry a spare tire or parts.{ Limited Space } Just a small tool set, fire extinguisher, duct tape, wire, and some fuses. But what works for me is, to call a friend. They know they can call on me anytime also. I had a friend recently help me. When my starter motor failed on my 34 delivery, about 10 miles from home. He brought a jack, tools, and took me to the parts store too. Thanks to fellow HAMB'er, { Oh Henry } THANKS Gene ! Ron....
Just thinking out loud here. How many MILLIONS of miles were driven with points type ignitions across all OEMS for X number of years with nary a thought of carrying a spare?
I haven't had a vehicle with points in a long time. Last one with points was an OT '73 GMC 4wd and I put the early MSD that used your points to trigger the box instead of a module on it and went from a new set of plugs and points every 8000-10000 miles to 40000-50000 miles for plugs. )ints only triggered box so all it took was resetting gap and lubing dist cam. Folks on here have complained for a long time about only being able to get Chinese made points of questionable quality, but I just don't have any personal, first person experience on that.
The only ignition failure I've ever had was on the return trip from the Street Rod Nationals in OKC, about 1984? I was about 15 miles from home and the 38 started missing and then died. The guy that was with me popped the distributor cap off of the Accel Dual Point distributor and scrapped the points with his pocket knife and I drove it a couple of more weeks before I put new points in. The bushings were out of that "high performance" distributor in 20K miles. Sold it at a swap meet with some parts they warrantied me that broke. I am running a Petronix III now. No one (other than you guys reading this and a few other guys) that the rev limiter is set at 5500 RPM to save me from myself.
Pertronix does not recommend solid core wires, especially with the Ignitor II. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/pertronix-and-copper-core-wires.391152/ Because then they couldn't bitch about being stranded by their Pertronix.
I drove a 61 356 Porsche from NY./ Ca. 3 month's up/down the coast an back to NY. Trouble free.... Run it!
I've been driving since 1966 and never had points ignition let me down. But, I don't run them until they fail either. Do a tuneup every couple of years and you won't have much trouble. I did have an electronic ignition module fail on a 22 year old pickup truck with 160,000 miles on it.
The only on the road ignition failure I've ever had was a condenser in my '60 T-bird. I've run MSD and Pertronix ignitions for years with no problems. I have a Pertronix stock appearing distributor and coil in my '56 Chevy and it starts and runs better than it did with the stock ignition by far. Go to their website, read about it and follow their recommendations to the letter it'll work fine.
I run Pertronix in all of our tractors, my 1953 IHC dump truck, my O/T Ford Van, and they work great and never had a problem. That’s a total of 8 of them on our farm. They all have the correct ohm coil and correct plug wires for the application. I will never own another set of points. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
The Jalopy Journal
