So my daily driver 64 F-100 has let me down. It has no spark sometimes, weak spark sometimes, and then great spark sometimes. It will fire up sometimes, run great for about 30 seconds, then starts missing, and then die. Let it sit for 15 minutes and it will have good spark again and fire right up. Any Ideas? I've changed the points, changed the rotor, cap looks good, newer plug wires and plugs, changed the coil, rewired the power wire to the distributor, and tried a hot wire to the coil with no luck. I haven't changed the condensers or the cap itself, but my understanding with condensers is they either work on they don't.
If you changed everything but the condenser...its probably the condenser...I used to think that it only works or doesnt too...but that is a LIE...they can make the spark erratic and do exactly what you said...
change the condenser with a good quality one, also make sure the breaker plate is grounded good and also the dist housing.
Just put a new condenser in, fired right up, it's still running a bit rough though. Gonna go for a quick test drive and see if it clears up. I learned something new about condensors tonight, thanks guys! Actually when I was changing it, the wire coming out of it fell right off, must have been broken and just hanging on by one or two wires. EDIT: back from a test drive, problem solved.
condensers have special wire that will stand up to being wiggled constantly...i guess yours got too much for too long
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