intermittant ignition wires?

Have a stubborn problem that's gettin me real mad real quick. I can only seem to keep my 52 8N side mount dist running a few hours on certain days. Last run was a month ago have been working on it since. Replaced 6V battery from new holland shop, spark plugs, plug wires, dist cap, points condenser. It finaly started this weekend only to run for about two hours to hog the old garden patch then it quit just as I was gettin ready to finish the job. It won't start and has no sparkies despite all the new stuff. Amp guage shows -20 whilst attempting to start. Turns over just no spark at the plugs, points open and close. There is a small wire going from the points to the terminal on the dist that the coil hooks up to and I noticed a burnt spot on the coil wire with the wire exposed and obviously burnt but intact, going from coil to dist post. Could this wire have touched the manifold and shorted out the new ignition parts in the dist? Any ideas helpful haven't tested voltage yet due to big ol storms as it's stuck out in the field but hope to tonight.

If the little wire from your sidemount coil to the distribuitor touched the manifold and burnt.. it might have shorted right there... and cooked some of the wireing upstream of it.. like to the terminal block.. key.. etc. Good news is... the stuff in the distribuitor would have been isolated by the short...as the power found 'ground' at the manifold, before the points.. thus the word.. 'short' circuit.

Those NH wires.. unfortunately.. are not good for our LEI ( low ! energy ignition ) that out N's have. We need solid copper core wires... not the modern anti-radiostatic cables like NH sold you.

-20 on the ammeter with the key on tells me you deffinately have a short inthe ignition... and somewhere there will be a wire getting real hot. The short will most deffinately be somewhere before the ignition coil.. as its resistance alone would not allow that high of current on that supply voltage... hopwever a nice soft copper wire somewhere on your N is probably thinking it is a light bulb about right now...

Soundguy

A lot of ignition related problems can pop up and leave you suddenly stranded. Assuming your points did not slip their gap (and easy to find ans fix remedy), then here are some other things to check which will cause your described problem:

1) The grounding out of your sparks due to the burned/exposed wires you spoke of

2) The copper ground strap is cracked.

3) Rotor developed hairline crack at the spring is is therefore not contacting the cap.

All of the above have happened to me.

4) Coil fried.

5) Condensor is bad.

Now to get a new proof meter and track down the spark when ever I d/c the negative terminal on the bat. If I don't it's dead by mornin. Which is were I started to begin wif. Any ideas?

Think of it like someone described as a pressurized water hose.

your hose from your pump is going to a sprinkler... but there is a huge hole in the hose.. one big enough that the entire flow of water escapes there..... the sprinkler never runs... all the pressure relieves at the easiest point.. the break.. not the power head on the sprinkler...

Electrics ar ethe same way. If the wire from the key switch is shorted to ground right past the key switch... only that section will burn. everything else from the shorted point down to the distribuitor is ok.... there is no current flowing there.

Even if the points were shorted.. you would still have the primary resistance of the coil inline.

The only possibly way for you to have that much current flowing pas tthe coil.. is if the primary of the coil were directly shorted...and then the points would toast fairly immediatly...like yesterday... at 20amps...

Soundguy