Ijust went through the same problem.Ireplacedpoints condensor and the coil.Istill had nothing.It drove me crazy.Well this is what it turned out to be in my case.When i replaced the points and condensor i aparently had the prongs on the condensor grounding out on either the botom or sides of the distributor.Thinking back, the prongs on the new condensor were longer than those on the original. look at my post in the electrical forum. Race carl gives some very helpful tips for checking the coil and distributor.Hope this helps...Ron
from race carl.... The first thing we need to determine is if the distributor is grounded correctly. Unhook the wire that goes from the coil to the distributor (the one that connects the points to the coil). Hook a test light to the distributor on the small wire, using the pointed end. Hook the clip end on the positive battery terminal at the starter. Crank the engine over and watch the test light. It should flicker on and off as the points open and close.
If the light does not come on at all, the points are not grounding out. Take the test light probe and check the backing plate for a ground (will the backing plate light up the test light?) If not, there is a wire under the backing plate that grounds the plate to the case (completing the circuit to ground) that is not making contact.
If the light stays on all the time even while cranking, the points are grounded out all the time. Unhook the condensor and crank again. Does the light flicker now? If so, the condensor is shorted out. Get a new condensor and see if that helps. Another test to perform is to remove the wire that goes from the 'stud' on the distributor to the points. Hook the test light up directly to the terminal on the points and observe. If the light now flickers, I would say the insulation around the 'stud' is bad, which is grounding out the points all the time.
A crude method of testing the coil would be to feed the coil on the (+) terminal and use a jumper wire to momentarily ground out the (-) terminal on the coil. Have the coil wire in the coil and set up to jump a gap so you can see if it has fire. Ground and unground the (-) terminal on the coil and every time you touch the jumper wire to the (-) terminal, the coil should throw a spark.
