73 240 No spark

[240dkw]

17 hours ago, Shawninvancouver said:

Ok dw. I have watched this video numerous times.  First question will his readings be different or same with points open and closed ? 
second will his readings be different with key in run position?

when I hooked my tester to green white then tried connecting other side of tester to both black whites neither gave a complete continuity.  
could that be due to car in run position? Could it be due to points? Of is that normal. When I did his second method to find hot wire with voltage that worked fine.  Is that all normal ??

 

Sorry I missed this post yesterday, first thing is to not try any continuity tests while you have the key  on unless you are quite sure what you are measuring. You can blow a fuse/ damage something doing that. I am not sure what you mean by “complete continuity”. If you mean that the meter shows an Ohm value instead of 0.00 than yes that could be normal as you are measuring two ends of a circuit that is connected to other circuits in the car. As Captain Obvious pointed out the g/w - b/w circuit goes through the tach and if I recall correctly in 73 they changed how the tach pick up works sometime during the year. So I can’t really say what you should read because I don’t know what kind of tach you have. 
As well the Captain is correct, you should do the hot wire test.

[Terrapin Z]

It sure sounds like you are close on this issue, I live up in the Chehalis area and have some time tomorrow to come down and see if I can help. 

No guarantees but maybe a second set of eyes on the issues could help.

I can bring my test tools and some spare parts to swap and test.

If you have time and would like the help PM me with the address and info. 

 

[Shawninvancouver]

thanks trapinn but I’m in Vancouver bc  lol  not Washington   I did just recently watch this video  can someone explain how you get spark at the points like in this video??

 

 

 

 

[Terrapin Z]

Well BC is out of range for me. There is a great group of Z peeps in the BC Z car club. Perhaps search them out. 

My thoughts were that I don't see a chassis ground off your battery. Negative should go to that bolt in the firewall behind the battery. Cleaned up of course. 

Also can you confirm the loss of ground when opening the points? a lot of time the wire is not in the isolator connector and is grounded out there. 

Third is the coil wire metal clip getting all the way down to the metal in the distributor. Sometimes the cap keeps it up too high to make contact. 

These have been basic common problems I see in this type of set up. 

The vid you posted is what we all expect to find in an old barn find car. A simple clean up and it works just fine. Points are very basic and have been around for a long time. Electronic ignition from this era was far worse to get working. IMHO. You can gap point with a matchbook and a nail file

[240dkw]

1 hour ago, Shawninvancouver said:

thanks trapinn but I’m in Vancouver bc  lol  not Washington   I did just recently watch this video  can someone explain how you get spark at the points like in this video??

 

 

 

 

All that is a normal spark you get when you have a small gap from power to ground. Nothing to do with the coil. 

[Zed Head]

2 hours ago, Shawninvancouver said:

I did just recently watch this video  can someone explain how you get spark at the points like in this video??

Everything in this thread has been about that.  The spark at the points is what causes the spark from the coil.  

[Shawninvancouver]

Does the battery need to be grounded on the firewall? I have one ground going to engine block.  As seen. 
 

[Terrapin Z]

1 hour ago, Shawninvancouver said:

Does the battery need to be grounded on the firewall? I have one ground going to engine block.  As seen. 

19 hours ago, Terrapin Z said:

My thoughts were that I don't see a chassis ground off your battery. Negative should go to that bolt in the firewall behind the battery. Cleaned up of course. 

 

Second line in my post. The motor and transmission are rubber mounted. 

[240dkw]

Yes for all the lights and other things to work that need a chassis ground, but not for your problem, the ignition system grounds though the engine block. Which brings up a good point, if you don’t have that firewall ground connected and are measuring for power your ground for the meter must be connected to the motor somewhere.

Edited May 4 by 240dkw

[Shawninvancouver]

After 4 more hours of testing all grounds. All live wires. Point. Checking power on start and power on run and that all wires were in the correct location. And still no spark I said F this and checked the brand new flaming hot coil and old coil using the video below.  And sure enough there was NO spark from either coil. What’s the consensus ? Bad dead coils or bad plug lead??I assume it’s one or the other or both. Did I fry a brand new coil by hooking it up by passing the resistor ??

 

[Yarb]

no

[Shawninvancouver]

So why do I have a brand new coil that won’t produce a spare ? Bad plug wire?