I'm thinking that you may very well have a bad condenser. If you are getting a weak spark and the points are getting rapidly burnt I would first check the condenser as that would cause both of these symptoms. If you have an analog ohmmeter you can sometimes check to see if the condenser is working although you cannot check if it has the correct value. Remove the condenser from the car and connect the ohmmeter leads to the condenser. The needle should jump up and then rapidly return to infinite resistance. Now reverse the leads and the meter should react the same way again. This is not a foolproof way of checking but will at least tell you if it's acting like a capacitor, which is all a condenser is. If the meter has a steady reading of anything other than infinite the condenser is leaking voltage. If the meter doesn't briefly jump up the condenser is probable open and acting as if it's not even there.
Have a good day Brad On Feb 5, 2007, at 9:39 AM, Brad Weikert wrote:
Check the voltage with the points closed. With the points open no current is flowing through the coil and therefore there will be 12 volts to the coil and points regardless of how much resistance the ballast has. The voltage drop will only take place while current is flowing through the resistor. With the points closed check the voltage at the positive terminal of the coil to see what the actual voltage drop is.A bad condenser would also cause a weak spark and excessive arcing on the points, drastically reducing their life.Brad On Feb 5, 2007, at 8:19 AM, Jeff Cantor wrote:I've determined that the primary cause of my poor performance recently is burnt points and a dyeing coil. Some investigating has lead me to believe that the route cause of these problems is that, while running, the ignition system is getting the full battery voltage of 12V rather than the 6-8V that is is designed for. My question for the group is where to go to correct this problem.The first and most obvious culprit would be the coil or ballast resistor but both the original one and a replacement I installed appear to have approximately the correct resistance and produce the same result (12V across the open points when the key is in the one position). This leads me to believe that whatever part of the system that is supposed to switch between providing 12V when starting and 6-8V when running is not making that transition correctly. But what part is that? Based on the wiring diagram in the FSM, it looks like power to the coil resistor goes through both the starter and horn relays as well as the ignition switch. Which one of these makes the transition?Thanks, Jeff '56 Sedan Trenton, NJ
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