Almost blew up my coil!!! (1 Viewer)

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Joined
Sep 15, 2008
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Location
Pittsburgh,PA
was trying to hookup this tach i was given..

+ to positive
- to negative

and the third wire said coil.....hooked it up to what ithought was negative on the coil,started engine....no reading on tach

moved the third wire to the other side of coil and motor died:eek:

tried to restart,disconnected tach completely,still no start

tested spark...no spark

10 mins later tried to start....ran like :censor: for 30 seconds...died

tested spark.....no spark

waited a while redid some connections...starts and runs fine

What the fudge happened?!? any ideas anyone?
 
It isn't likely that hooking a tach up in any possible way to the coil would harm the coil in any way. Start basic and test the coil. Hook up the + side to battery + and disconnect the wires at the - side. Momentarily ground the - side of the coil and look for a big fat spark from the center wire.
 
Thats what im thinking......when i looked at it better i saw that the tach ENDS at 5000......not redline but ends......dont know what this thing is for might be for forklift/front end loader etc.....

Oh well....
 
I'm getting ready to hook mine up without the (-) tach side landed. Question is, without the tach hooked up does that (-) side need to be grounded?
 
Even if you put a dead short on it, it wouldn't burn up the coil. Just test it and find out if it works and then if you have power to the coil.

Tachometers are electric devices, so they need a complete circuit to work. This means a connection to both + and ground. The ground connection is different from the signal pickup that connects to the - side of the coil.
 
Ok it did it again!!!

was running fine then died....no spark

mines got that ballast resistor and ignitor on there too....

not sure how to check this stuff.....was thinking about using a 22re coil if mines junk....i dunno im lost for tonite:beer::beer::beer:

At least the Pens beat Montreal tonite or today would have totally sucked
 
Alright it started today ran for 10 seconds and died....then no spark


So using some info i pirated off of some other threads i ran a jumper from the (-) side of coil to the red wire going to the condenser.....it fired right up and stayed running....

Any ideas what is wrong?

I was told could be the ballast resistor or ignitor on top of the coil....whatcha think?
coil.jpg
 
- side of coil to red wire connecting to distributor? If so, then the ignitor is bad.

Ballast resistor connects to the + side of the coil. If it runs the ballast resistor is OK.
 
- side of coil to red wire connecting to distributor? If so, then the ignitor is bad.

Ballast resistor connects to the + side of the coil. If it runs the ballast resistor is OK.

And ignitors rarely go bad.

Ballest resistors are cheap. Buy it & try it out.

John
 
Ya it seems the red wire goes to the ignitor then a wire coming out of the ignitor goes to the (-) coil......

so if jumping the red wire directly to the (-) makes it run then WTF does the ignitor even do?!?...can i eliminate it?
 
- side of coil to red wire connecting to distributor? If so, then the ignitor is bad.

Ballast resistor connects to the + side of the coil. If it runs the ballast resistor is OK.


Thanx ALOT,this points to an ignitor.....another local member is gonna lend me his spare coil,ignitor,and ballast resister and ill try that

or bypass the ignitor completely....if i can?
 
I can't keep up with all the wire colors but I can tell you this.
There should be a wire from your ignition to a ballast resistor to the + coil. Wire from - coil to ignitor and condenser. The ignitor and condenser connect together. The other connection from ignitor and condenser is to ground, this could be a screw connection. And yes you need the ignitor:cheers: I know you knew that.
 
If you have a points type distributor, you can bypass the ignitor, but you will need to install an condensor on the wire from the distributor to coil -. Ignitor type ignitions don't have a condensor here normally. They do often have a noise suppression condensor on the + side of the coil, but this is an entirely different purpose, which is why I was confused by your connection to a condensor.
 

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