8n coil

One guy wrote in once and had same problem, we finally figured out (after he posted a picture of his distributor) that the metal retaining clip holding the points base in place was installed wrong and was touching the points, effectively grounding them out.

You will have to remove your distributor again but that is not a big deal.

Put a continuity meter or a tester light on those points and see if the circuit opens and closes when the points break and close.

If the circuit does not open when the points open up then you will know they are grounded. You will have to do a little detective work to figure out where the short is.

Fire to the top of the ignition coil don't mean nuttin; I gitt fire innna my belly when I eat chile. Ya better be fer quoting volts. You will have posibility of 2-different volts; battery volts (about 12-volts) when the ignition points are open and coil volts (about 3-volts) when the points are closed. Anyother volts means ya gotts problems. Once you share with us what yer 2-different volts are, we can pretty much tell you what, where, and why you ain't gottt NO SPARKIES.

Don't know how to tell wheather yer points are open or closed? Well its really kinda hard to see the 0.015" points gap without an eyeball at the end of yer finger. But heres a better way. Turn-on yer ignition switch and clippie yer red (+) lead of yer el-cheapo voltmeter ($10 at hardware store) to yer squarecan coil top-terminal. Ground yer black (-) lead to some rusty tractor bracket that is GROUND. Gottsumm volt? right? Don't matter zackly what it is. NOW puttchur tranny shifter in HI-GEAR and PUSH on those big levers called reartires and WATCH yer meter for volts change. PUSH for at least 3-feet while watching yer voltmeter. Understand?

Whachagitt? Change? NO change? Iff'n always reading battery volts, yer points are open. (usually that danglin' springy-thingy not makin' contact) Iff'n always reading about 3-volts, yer points are shorted out inside yer distributor body somewhere.

You do know itza 2-bolt 15-min job to remove yer frontmount distributor and check everything out on the kitchen table, don't you? Your distributor is driven by an off-sett tang scheme and will always re-install in-time. Simply finger install the 2-bolts and twirl yer rotor untill yer distributor falls into place, and vola' yer in-time, isn't that amazing?..... ..respectfully, Dell, yer self-appointed sparkie-meister