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Coil Position Question

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Jerry S

01-08-2002 08:45:40




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My boy is working on a truck that has a late 50's chevy motor in it. THe coil was hooked up positive side to distributor when we got it and no battery. I hooked it up like I thought it should be and battery up with negative ground. Coil appears dead as a mackrel. I am going to borrow a known working coil but wonder if it matters if the coil is upside down or sideways or what position it bolts on the side of the motor with. Some genious broke off a bolt in one of the two bolt holes on the head and I don't want to mess with it unless i have to. I see coils on old trucks upside down and on cars and tractors at a slant or on the side but not sure how or if that effects the coil. Is there oil inside of it or what? Since the electrical is shot, I wanted to just get the motor to run first and wonder if I can run a wire from the positive battery post to the coil directly without a resistor of some kind?
Thanks for your help.

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Ron Bullard

01-08-2002 16:36:10




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 Re: Coil Position Question in reply to Jerry S, 01-08-2002 08:45:40  
The physical position of the coil doesn't matter a lot. If you turn it on it's side or upside down and oil leaks out then the coil is bad anyway.
Old Chevrolets did not use external resistors, the resistor is inside the coil. It should be wired with the positive side toward the ignition switch or battery and the negative side toward the points. You can wire directly from the battery to the positive side of the coil if you want to but you run the risk burning up the points before you get around to cranking the engine if they are closed. Take the positive wire loose from the coil and turn on the key. If your test light tells you there is current there, then you don't have to worry with wiring directly from the battery. It won't accomplish anything. While you have the wire off and the test light on it, turn the key switch to the cranking position. The light should be "on" there as well. I have seen bad ignition switches that killed power to the ignition circuit when you cranked the engine. If the test light stays on through all that, then re- connect the wire and put the test light on the negative side of the coil and crank the engine. The test light should go on and off, on and off, on and off. If it does then your points are breaking as tey should. If all this works as it should and you still don't have any spark then either the coil, coil wire, rotor or distributor cap are bad. To test the coil wire, you can just steal one from another vehicle and swap it out or pull it out of the coil tower in the distributor and put it about 1/16 from a good ground and crank the engine. you should see a spark jump each time the points break. If you do then your coil and wire are good. If they are good then put it back into the cap and pull one of the spark plug wires out. Crank the engine and you should see a periodic spark jump from the cap to the plug wire. If you don't, then you distributor cap and rotor should be replaced.If they coil wire doesn't spark then pull it out of the coil and stick a screwdriver into the coil tower. Then ground another screwdriver to the block and put them almost together. Leave about 1/16 to 1/8 gap. Crank the engine and if you have spark, and a good ground, you should be able to see it jump the gap between the screwdrivers. If you see the spark then your coil wire is bad. If there is no spark then the coil is probably bad.

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