ckkrause

I've been noticing a kind of a lope in the idle that causes the car to shake a little side to side and I felt the car was a little down on power. So I began trouble shooting by pulling the coil lead off each distributor cap in turn. When I pulled the coil wire out of the primary distributor cap, nothing happened other than the idle went up slightly and seemed to smooth out a little. When I then pulled the coil off the secondary distributor cap(the distributor driven by the belt) the car barely ran, chug, chug, etc...like it was firing on one cylinder only. I then switched wires and the got the same result

My interpretation is the primary coil is bad. Is this how you read it? Any other possible interpretations? By the way, how do you test a coil?

Thanks for your reply!

-CKKrause

Richard Curtis

simplest method of testing a coil: Pull a spark plug wire. insert a spare spark plug. Ground it against something so that you can see the electrode. have some hit the starter to spin the engine just a revolution or two. Observe the color of the spark. if it's any color other than blue, you've got a bad coil. I've never known this method to fail.

ckkrause

So, my nice yellow spark doesn't make it, eh! I guess I'm driving up to Parts Heaven tomorrow...

Thanks Richard.....

Gary R.

Any chance the dist. belt is shot and has maybe hopped a tooth and is causing the uneven condition? My way of thinking is that when is all is well it doesn't matter which coil wire you pull and she should run "ok"..

ckkrause

I thought about that. However, the bad coil is on the primary distributor. That is the distributor that drives the belt, so I didn't think it could be the problem.

-CKKrause

Gary R.

Sounds logical... try a new coil, maybe there is someone near you willing to let you try theirs bfore buying one?

dougn

could be the wires or something else on the primary side. to test whether it's the primary coil you can connect the high tension coil wire of the secondary coil to the primary dist. if the car runs smoothly then the primary cap and wires are ok....thereby pointing to the primary coil or driver as being the likely problem

ckkrause

Thanks Dougn! I switched everything back and forth between the primary and secondary distributor circuits and it turns out both coils/dist. caps/rotors all are good. It appears that the only parts that are bad are the lower spark plug wires..... I am going to order new wires tomorrow. A 93K, I think they are original..

-CKKrause

dougn

make sure they're plugged in properly before you buy new ones