When the engine stops on you, pull the wire out of the center of the distributor cap, hold it near a good ground and try to start. You should have a FAT, BLUISH-WHITE SPARK. If you don"t, the problem is most likely in the primary ignition circuit, which includes the ignition coil. A weak spark will ignite a richer mixture so that maybe why it start with the choke on. But you need to find the root cause of your problem. It could be incorrectly set points, burned corroded or pitted points, loose wire, bad connection ,or overheated coil, bad ignition switch, etc. It sounds suspiciously like you have an overheated coil and you say you have the so called "12V coil" that needs to run with a resistor and you don"t know whether you have a resistor. A quick way to check is with a voltmeter. Pull the distributor cap off and crank the engine til the points close. Turn on the key and measure the voltage at the battery side of the ignition coil. If the voltage is battery voltage, ~12 V, then you don"t have a resistor in the primary circuit and you need a total reistance (Rcoil +R resistor) = 3 ohms.This generally means an external resistor of 1.5 ohms. If the voltage reads ~6 V then you have a resistor. (I am assuming you have a 12V system.) Hers"s the reasoning.If the coil you have is run without a resistor, it will overheat in 30 -60 minutes, short internally and kill the ignition. It will cool down after some time and run for awhile and overheat and short again repeatedly until it finally burns out. These coils can only handle ~4 amps max so that "s why the resistor is required. The NAPA IC-14SB coil(~$15) has the resistance built in so it does not require the external resistance. Also make sure that the small primary wire to the distributor is connected to the coil terminal with the same sign as your battery ground.(If you have an alternator, that should be negative ground.)This will maximize the spark power.
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