Glowing Coil Terminal

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domdart

domdart

FABO Gold Member
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I fired up the car last night, popped the hood, then noticed the negative terminal on the coil glowing red. I just put a 72 340 into a 68 Dart. I have a new V8 harness. Everything seems to work fine. The engine fires right up and charges. I do have my Edelbrock electric choke connected to the coil. Edelbrock instructions state to hook it into the fuse block. Of course, any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks FABO.
 
You all ready know the issue. Why even post the question when you have knowingly disregarded the instructions? AND hooked up the power wire to the one place the instructions tell you NOT to.
 
domdart said:
I fired up the car last night, popped the hood, then noticed the negative terminal on the coil glowing red. I just put a 72 340 into a 68 Dart. I have a new V8 harness. Everything seems to work fine. The engine fires right up and charges. I do have my Edelbrock electric choke connected to the coil. Edelbrock instructions state to hook it into the fuse block. Of course, any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks FABO.
Click to expand...

Even back in 68 that car may have had provisions for electric choke, my 73 Duster does. If it doesn't you need to dedicate a wire for it that is only hot when the ignition is in run position. it's a pain in the *** but you gotta do it. Trust me it is more work worrying about it than just getting it done.
 
The coil doesn't have enough voltage for the electric choke. The coil has about 6v across it, and you need 12v for the choke.

Hook up the choke to the input side of the ballast resistor. Go to Napa and get a piggy back flat blade terminal and crimp it on the end of the choke positive + wire. Then put it on the ballast resistor input side and then stack the other connector on top of that.

To find the ballast input, disconnect both sides of wires from the ballast resistor and turn the key to the on position. Then clip a test light to the negative side of the battery and use the poker side to each wire for the ballast. Whichever one lights up the test light is the input. Use that one...

Then connect everything and start it up...
 
Thanks everyone. I'll piggyback that to the input side of the ballast resistor tonight.
 
And just keep an eye on the coil.... that much heat on one terminal is not good and may have effected the long term survival of that connection.

Once you connect the choke up to the input side of the ballast, then get a voltmeter and check the voltage between the battery + terminal to that new connection point, with the car at a fast idle. If it is more than about 0.5 volts, then there is too much current being drawn by the electric choke through the ignition switch and the wiring to the ballast. At that point, either the choke connection needs to be moved yet again before the excess current burns up another connection, or the poor connections need to be corrected. You would be wise to not ignore this issue; it is potentially a sort of time bomb....
 
I always thought it would be a good idea to get the Oil Pressure switch involved. That way if the engine stalled, the choke would cut out. So if the car stalled while I went back to finish my coffee, at least the choke would have cooled off to make a restart easier. Plus I hate to suck choke power through the bulkhead connector and ignition switch.
In the end, a good tune made the choke a non-issue on my S,down to about freezing or a little lower, so the choke mech never made it onto the carb,anyway.
But if I needed a choke wire. I sure wouldn't suck it through the bulkhead connector.
 
It's the current not the voltage making it glow. Powering a 12 volt coil with 6 volts doubles the current draw.
 
cudascott said:
It's the current not the voltage making it glow. Powering a 12 volt coil with 6 volts doubles the current draw.
Click to expand...

At this point I have no idea what the OP is doing, but I can guarantee you this.........doubling the voltage and current through the coil IS NOT going to cause a no 8 or 10 machine stud to "glow"
 
I agree with you Dell something is not right for sure.
 
A loose or corroded connection could for sure be the culprit
 
I got a piggyback spade terminal, some wire, and a multimeter on my way home today. I hooked the choke up to the input side of the ballast. I checked the voltage between the positive battery terminal and the new connection. At a high idle it peaked right at .5 volts. I ran the car for about 10 minutes and there is no red glow on the coil terminal. Is there anything else I should check? Thanks everyone.
 
That is WAY too much drop. Unhook the choke and see what it does. "That point" in your electrical system not only also powers the VR, it ALSO is the "voltage sense." Whatever that is in voltage, below battery, the VR ADDS that.

This means that if the VR is regulating at 14, that plus the .5 will end up with 14.5 at the battery.

One way around this is to chop the blue wire between the bulkhead and the resistor, and put a bosch type relay in there "electrically." You can pull fused power off the starter relay 'big stud" fused with say, a 20A inline fuse, and use the "output" of the relay to power the blue wire going to the resistor. This should stop the drop problem

There's many ways to skin this cat. You have to realize that these cars were not built with additions and modifications in mind. They were pretty minimal when produced.
 
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