The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Coil / Ballast Resistor

Well.. you fix one thing and more break My points went out so I replaced cap / rotor / plugs / and points... but now I know why they went out. My coil is leaking and seems to have a crack in it. I measured the voltage going to it and it's arround 12+ volts. I search the forum and found out I need an IC64 (12 volt conversion by PO) that has an internal resistor. My question is this:

Where is that external ballast resistor and what does it look like? I want to make sure that I remove it.

In my Camaros they run from the voltage regulator.

Thanks for any help!

If your truck was converted from 6 V to 12 V, there is no ballast resistor because it was not used in the 6V system. If you use a coil on 12 V that is made to run with a resistor and you don't use one, sometimes the oil will boil out of it and sometimes the spark will breakdown the plastic.

Thanks truckernix... makes sense now. That's why I couldn't find the ballast resistor and that's why the coil killed my points and then itself. Well, I'll make sure that the new coil has an internal resistor.

Thanks again!!

:)howziit guys!

most ballast resistors i had seen were mounted on the firewall...close to the coil. they look like a ceramic insulator, shaped something like a miniature cinder block.

if you follow the coil's 12v wire, it will lead you directly to it.

certainly not trying to pull your chain...just trying to help.

Hello, pardon me for jumpin' in here. Me and my son is getting ready to rewire his '45 to a 12 volt system (from scratch). We already put in a 12 volt coil and 12 volt battery. No need for the ballast? john.