Beyond Frustrated - Wont start/stay running

nm9stheham,

The coil is brand new as of last week. I got it from advance auto. It is a BWD with a lifetime warranty.

I wont be able to measure the ohms of the coil wire and plug wires until later in the weekend, so I will try to report back on that early next week.

So measuring the voltage at the coil during cranking. How is that done? obviously you place one of the leads on the positive side of the coil. Do you place the other lead on the negative side? or just some other ground?

Well I didnt really "test" a condenser. What I did was just wire clip the lead of another condenser onto the negative side of the coil. However, that condenser was not grounded and was outside of the distributor during testing. I guess I can reattempt that test with the condenser grounded outside. Because if you look at my post #24, I got the same results with another condenser wired into the system (however I didnt ground said condenser) as I did without it wired in. I have no way of measuring "uF"

The points are screwed down as is a condenser in the distributor. That distributor has a adjustment bracket which is then bolted to the engine block. The negative battery cable is connecting the engine to the battery. I also have another ground wire going from a valve cover bolt to a bolt on the firewall.

My dad believes there may be an issue with the cap and rotor (pictures are in my post #24). I got another cap and rotor that I am going to try as well.




AJ,

As I just stated in my response to nm9stheham, I tried mounting a condenser outside of the distributor, but did not have that condenser grounded. So I am going to repeat the test with that condenser grounded.

When I looked at the points they appeared to be fine. They only have about 1000 miles on them since I just put this car though a tune up a couple months ago. But as a last ditch effort I could try and sand the contact surfaces down on the points. Your thoughts on that?

Yes I know another wave of issues comes in when the engine is cranking slow. Thats why I am trying to keep cranking to a minimum and keep the battery on a charger/tender

and that is a very simple point substitution test! appears fairly easy to test. I will try and get to that when I measure the resistance of the wires and check the voltage on the coil during cranking.

Thank you all for your help