215 with no spark (I've read and read and tried everything!)

[53ClubCoupe]

Hello all,

I've been wracking my brains with this car. I picked up a 53 Ford Customline Club Coupe a few weeks back. I got the car to fire on starting fluid before I rebuilt the carb. So now the carb is rebuilt and it has a new condenser, wires, rotor and points and now the car won't fire at all.

Here's what I've done so far:
(Running only the ignition circuit on 12v.)
-I tried firing it like I did before with the 6v condenser and coil both positive and negative ground and got no spark
-I put in a 12v msd blaster coil that I know is good off my 65 Skylark and got no spark
-I changed to a condenser from my nailhead that I know is good and got no spark
-I took the distributor out, cleaned it up and replaced the ground wire and still got no spark
-I tried the coil and condenser from my 48 ford pickup and still got no spark
-I went back to the condenser from my nailhead and the 12v coil from the same car and still got no spark
-I have tried every configuration of condensers, rotors, the old points, new points, 12v positive ground, 12v negative ground, reversed the wires on the distributor, etc, etc.
-I tried running a constant power to the positive side of the coil and got no spark
-I have power at the positive side of the coil on every coil I've tried but nothing on the negative side even when cranking. The gap is set to 17 thousandths, the points are opening and closing and there is no power at the points either.
-The last thing I just tried was pulling the distributor out again and putting an inuslator between the body of the distributor and the ground wire. I read somewhere that this distributor had something to keep the ring terminal off the body of the distributor for some grounding reason. That did not have any effect.

I'm really at a loss as to why this car is not firing. I have no idea how changing wires and points could cause it not to have spark. I'm hoping that someone will have an idea that I am just over looking.

I really want to drive this thing before the weather gets too crappy.

 

[fmartin_gila]

Sounds like you do have a ground problem with the dist. The wire from the coil to the dist has to be isolated from ground until the points close. Rotate the engine til the points are on a high lobe and open, then check to see if you have voltage at both sides of the coil. Seems to me that you have a short to ground where the wire goes into the dist(should be isolated) or from the hot side of the points to ground. Another thought is that the condenser is shorted out which would feed direct to ground. If the moveable plate had lost its ground(usually the little short bare wire inside) then you would also not get spark but should be showing voltage at both sides of the coil.

Fred

 

[Lazy JW]

What Fred said.

The only thing that breaker points do is complete the circuit by applying ground so that the current can flow through the primary windings of the coil to energize it, then the points open to break the circuit (hence the name "breaker points") which causes the electro-magnetic field in the coil to collapse, inducing a spark out of the secondary windings of the coil.

I think there is a continual short to ground somewhere as Fred mentioned.
Joe

 

[53ClubCoupe]

I figured it out. It was my power wire in my coil. Of course that was the only one I didn't change.

My motor is now out of the car, the head has been redone and I just finished cleaning everything up and polishing the crank. I was just going to throw the motor back in the car to get it around for the rest of the season but i'm thinking that I might want to build the motor up to make a little power instead. I kind of like the idea of leaving this six in there instead of going to a Y block.

 

[fmartin_gila]

Glad that you got it going. It is a good thing to keep the Inline in there. That's just my opinion.

Fred