Hello all,
Well, I had some time to look at the truck on Saturday and it turned out to be a wasted couple of hours and a heavy dose of frustration! Now the engine gets NO spark at all. It seems as though I am moving backwards.
Here is what I have done:
1) wired pos batt to a toggle switch to a ballast resister to the positive coil (in that order).
2) wired the negative coil to the points.
3) wired from positive batt to the inside terminal on the starter solinoid (touching wires to crank).
It seems so simple. It cranks well. I have checked voltage at: ballast resister (before and after), coil on both pos and neg side. In all of those locations the voltage reads the same as the battery. When cranking, the voltage at the ballast resister downstream reads approximately 10 volts. I replaced the points (new store bought, but I noticed that the contact points had some oxidation so someone used them and returned)and even ran a bypass wire from the points to the coil as the old one had mouse damage and the connector at the points would get warm to the touch (possible open circuit going to ground?). Visually the points are opening and closing, but gap not set as I typically set the dwell while cranking. I have even swapped out another used coil (although it was an Autolite from a 70's vintage Scout 11)to see if that is the culprit.
I hit the point of frustration and quit.
So above is what I know, and below are things I need to know.
1)My dwell meter formerly registered while cranking, and now the needle does not move at all. Connecting red terminal to neg coil, and black terminal to ground. I have no way to check function of meter as none of my other vehicles have coils.
2)Correct method to check resistance on a coil. All of my old manuals state that for a crank with no start failure to check coil, yet none have the acceptible ohm ranges or test procedures.
3)Correct method to check the resistance on a unipoint condenser, and the acceptible ohm ranges.
4)Any other suggestions to get this engine to run!
Thanks in advance, and I hope you all can help me out.
Paul
