New wires wre installed when I first started working on it. The fire from ignition switch to + coil seems to be consistant. the negative side shows fire on and off as points open and shut. I did not check wires with an ohmmeter but I would suppose one may fail but not several at the same time. I've heard of distributors developing a short but I don't see how that would cause this as the rotor doesn't make metal contact to the distributor itself. will try the ohm meter tomorrow just to be sure.