My wife doesnt trust my car anymore and she wont ride in it until I "fix it".


That's funny, that's how I keep my wife off my boat,,,
I keep it a little broke.

Dead in the drive again, no spark.

New ignition module, good coil, no opens, good iginition voltage.

Tommorow I'll pull the ditributor, dont know what to do with it but its coming out!

Ed, how did you make out with the electrical situation. I have been wondering for the past couple of days now. Had to ask. It's like a mystery novel to me. LOL Last you posted it was "dead in the drive"...
I hope you were able to get it figured out and if so, I would love to know so if I have a simular situation I can hope to cure it sooner than later with less headache.

Vincent

the saga continues.....

My buddy came over last weekend with his 85, we tested everything we could put a meter on, all tested fine.

As a test we took the coil out of his car and tried it on mine...BINGO, instant fire!!!

Went down to Advanced Auto Parts and bought a new coil for $6.70 and all is well again.

The only downside to this is that in my hurry to test drive my toy I broke one of the pipe hangers off backing down the drive, thank God for hangers.

BTW---I DID say $6.70, I even asked the guy to double check the price knowing that if I got away with a "to good to be true" deal I would pay for it in the long run.

"On the road again, I just cant wait to be on the road again.........."

The coil test----

Another Bud just told me that even though the coil may test fine with a ohm meter it still may be shorted between the primary and secondary windings. This can ony be discovered with a meger ( a high voltage short tester )

In case anyone was wondering

Ed


Rock on Mr. Bush

Thanks for the update and I am Happy to hear that you are back on the road again. Man how frastrating something like that can be. I will remember this one.

Vince

If a coil fails and Ohm meter test it's bad. If it passes it may still be bad.
If the coil has battery voltage with the key on, connect a test light to the coil negative. This is the Tach connection on the distributor on our C3's. If the light flashes when the engine is cranked, but does not spark, or is a weak spark, the coil is bad. If the light comes on but does not blink, the primary ignition is the problem. You can also use a dwell meter in place of the test light and look for a dwell reading instead of a blink. Sorry I didn't think to say this earlier.

Ken Styer

|UPDATED|2/21/2004 3:21:15 PM (AZT)|/UPDATED|

Thanks for the help guys, no more iginition problems.

Now I get to figure out why my tranny decided to start slipping so bad......

BTW, my wife suggested we take the vette when we walked out to go to a party on Sunday. I guess shes starting to trust it more.

Short lived bliss,

After three days of sitting the car has no spark again.

I checked both sides of the coil with a test light and they both do the same thing. Strong light when key is turned on, dimmer light but steady when I turn it over.

What did you mean by "primary ignition" pardon my ignorance but I cant any reference to that term anywhere but in this forum?

Ed

If the light does not blink on the negative side of the coil the problem is in the primary ignition.
Primary ignition is the low voltage part of the ingition system. I includes the power from the key, the low voltage side of the coil, the ignition module, the pick up coil and condenser.
With power to the negative side of the coil everything is good up to there. So the problem is inside the distributor. Ignition module, pickup coil, or condenser. Either the new module you put in failed, or the pick up coil failed as the most common two problems. Without points, the condenser is often ignored, but if it short intermittently, you will have the problem you are having now. Use an ohm meter to see if the condenser wire and ground are an open circuit. It should be. Also disconnect the two wires going to the module from the pick up coil. Measure across the wires with the ohm meter. It should be around 800 to 1200 ohms. These vary so don't hold me to the exact spec. Now wiggle the wires around. Sometimes the wires break inside the insulation. They look fine, but don't work. If the ohm readings change while wiggling the wires, replace the pick up coil. ( the wires are attached.)
To replace the pick up coil the distributor needs to come out. Drive the pin out of the distributor gear on the bottom, remove the gear, and slide the distributor shaft out of the top. Then you can change the pickup.
Be sure to mark the distributor position and rotor position before removing anything, so you can put it back in the same place so the timing will be close. Then the timing should be set with a timing light.

Ken Styer