Re:HELP Coil has juice, but no spark

[christian147@domain.elided]

Lets go for the short story on the coil.  You should see battery voltage
on the + terminal of the coil at all times (with the key on).  The silver
box switches the ground on and off.  The spark happens when the ground is
switched off.  Easiest way to see the switching is with a dwell meter or
a duty cycle meter.  Dwell meters were cheep but are getting hard to
find.  duty cycle meters can be found on some of the whizz bang digital
multi meters in the $100 range.  With dwell meter set to 4 cylinder, look
for at least 5 degrees while cranking.  Duty cycle would be 5-10%
cranking.  If you have that and no spark, bad coil.  if you don't have
that then that silver box (called an ignitor) isn't switching.  Ignitors
do go bad , but not often.  Look at the wire that plugs into the side of
the distributor.  Is it tight? Take the cap and rotor off the
distributor, then remove the dust shield and look at the wires coming
from that connector to the sensor.  Do they still have insulation on
them?  are they broken?   Unplug the ignitor and test for continuity to
ground from the distributor plug(if  2 wires no continuity to ground, if
3 wires, continuity on only ).  Check for continuity to ground of the
distributor sensor(should not be continuity to ground, sensor resistance
I would guess from 400 to 3000 ohms, I haven't had my hands on one for a
long time).  If all that looks good then its ignitor time.

Chris Hall  

--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided