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View Full Version : Help! Defying the laws of physics


65GTO
07-19-2008, 11:46 AM
Howdy all.. Got my tri power all ready to go on tuesday, been converting the car over, fixing my valley pan leak, new throttle cable, etc etc. Part of that has been going from HEI back to the points distributor. Me and the old man rebuilt it before dropping it back in, new condenser, set the points, greased everything etc, looks alright to me. Changed the HEI connections back to lugs for the coil and hooked everything up, again looks right, checked the wiring diagrams, had three old guys check me.
Alright here's where we're all getting stumped and hope somebody can shed some light.. We have been hitting everything with the volt meter and the test light, and somehow we're getting power going into the coil, but not out the top of the coil. Figured it was a bad coil, changed it to a new MSD coil, same story.. SOMEHOW, it must be lighting every once in a while because the car is backfiring like a shotgun blast every so often. Things are close to in time, but not getting any spark through the wires, or through the coil..all the wires are showing 8ohms of resistance or so, so they're fine, but they can't be the problem if electricity never gets out of the coil, right?
Kind of stumped here with the coil, we're convinced the GTO opened up a black hole and electrons are being destroyed, defying the laws of conventional physics. Our only other theory was the coil was somehow grounding out on something, but we've got nothing for suspects. Any help/theories would be greatly appreciated.. I'm thinkin I might just rip out the entire wiring harness and throw a new one in, but this harness worked with the HEI so there's no logical reason it wouldnt work now.. :confused:

HOTROD64-STOCK69
07-19-2008, 08:35 PM
OK Do the following EXACTLY as I describe:
Pull the distributor, clamp it in a vice so you can rotate it freely. Pull the coil and a plug wire and a spark plug. Insert the wire into the coil. Insert the spark plug into the other end of the wire and GROUND the outside of the plug to the vice so it shows continuity with the distributor housing. Get the battery, connect the ground side of the battery to the vice so that the spark plug and distributor housing are grounded to it. Take the wire from the distributor and connect it to the negative(-) side of the coil. Using a jumper wire connect the positive(+) side of the coil to the positive side of the battery. Spin the distrubutor. The spark plug should spark. If it doesn't check that the advance plate the points mount to has a ground wire connected to the housing. Check to be certain the wires going to the points is installed correctly and not grounded out. If all that checks out then from what you said about the backfire you may have a bad condensor and the coil is loading up on power and then just has to release it. Good luck, Mike