Spark when key is turned to the off position?

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The fact that a coil spark is triggered with key to off, means ignition ballast is working. The key off, interrupts the coil current and coil sparks. The 5 Ohm ballast could be open, a simple test with Ohm meter would determine that.
 
my dad and I rebuilt the car and he was the brains behind the operation to say the least and I have since moved way taking the car with me. So consider me to be completely ignorant and learning as I go haha. So simplified down how would one go about testing to see if the 5 ohm ballast is open?
 
There are 4 pins on the ballast. The two resistors are in the long direction. Place meter in Ohms. Place the two leads tips together, you should read 0 to 0.2 Ohms. This will verify the meter is working. Then place the lead tips terminals 1, 2 polarity does not matter on resistors. Read resistance, repeat for 3,4.
One resistor should be 5 Ohms, the other 0.5 to 1.5 Ohms.

1 xxxxxxxxxxxx 2

3 xxxxxxxxxxxx 4

If ballast is good, then time to follow suggestion of testing pickup resistance, and checking reluctor to pickup gap.
 
Hi Dave, here: the "U" in the left end in the photo is the index

Ballast_Resistors.png
 
Thanks everyone for the help so far. Since I've last posted the car has started. Then later on that day it didn't. Kind of like a problem I was having a while back that I thought was due to the connectors at the bulkhead. Well since I was getting that spark every time I let off the key I figured something had to be going on with the distributor. The gap was right and the distributor cap didn't have anything out of the ordinary so I decided to look at the connectors. I started with the connectors going from the ecu to the distributor and cranked it and sure enough it fired straight up. Looks like that might be the issue but will keep posting if anything changes.
 
_Sam said:
Thanks everyone for the help so far. Since I've last posted the car has started. Then later on that day it didn't. Kind of like a problem I was having a while back that I thought was due to the connectors at the bulkhead. Well since I was getting that spark every time I let off the key I figured something had to be going on with the distributor. The gap was right and the distributor cap didn't have anything out of the ordinary so I decided to look at the connectors. I started with the connectors going from the ecu to the distributor and cranked it and sure enough it fired straight up. Looks like that might be the issue but will keep posting if anything changes.
Click to expand...
Intermittent no spark during crank and 1 spark as switch returns to run... I wont rule out the ignition switch or it connector lower on the column. Good luck with it.
 
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