200ci not starting, need running by tomarrow, ignition help!

[rmoe88]

Hey everyone, how are you all doing tonight? Me... not so good. The chargers lost badly and the falcon does not start!

So here is where im at. I have a stock distributor, but not a load-o-headache. I checked the positive side of the coil and it is getting the full 12v (no resistor wire.) Then i checked the negative side to ground and there was only 1.5v. This was with the engine not turning, the key in "on," and the magnet in the dizzy that triggers my pertronix ignition REMOVED.

I then REMOVED the wire that goes from the negative coil terminal to the pertronix ignition. With the wire removed, the negative coil terminal had 12v under the same conditions as i stated above.

What does this mean? dead pertronix? With that wire hooked up, i should have been reading ~12v not 1.5v right? If more tests are needed to be done, please tell me what needs to be tested, im going to moniter this thread for a wile I need my car tomorrow!

Thanks guys,
Moe.

 

[fordconvert]

I dont know much about the pertronix. The readings you get when checking electronics with a meter are not always going to make sense. If you put your meter between the + and - leads for the coil and turn over the engine you should see 12v pulses. Not sure that you can count on any stable readings to ground when the module is involved but since the coil is going to be looking for a pulsed ground referenced to +12 thats what I would be trying to measure.

 

[rmoe88]

You can think of the pertronix as the same as points, all it does is breaks the ground on the coil when it picks up the magnet.

I dont have anyone around to help me crank over the car, so thats why i was doing it this way. With the magnet removed, the pertronix cant break the coil circuit. So, the negative of the coil should see 12v right? That was my train of thought at least.

I guess i will wait until my friend gets off work, ill have him come over and give me a hand. He gets off in about an hour.

 

[fordconvert]

The switching transistor in the module is going to have some effect on the reading even if it is 'off'. Just like the condenser would in a points system if the points were open.

To crank the car from under the hood you just need to hook the small terminal on the battery side of the solenoid to the + side of the battery. If you are going to rig a nasty chunk of wire onto it put it on the small terminal and touch it to the big one, not the other way around because if it hits something while its on the big terminal its going to make some big time sparks. The other way worst case it will crank the engine.

 

[rmoe88]

It got a little late last night so i did not post what we found.

My volt meter is very cheap, so it was not picking up the pulses accrost the coil. At first it was reading 12v, turn the engine over and it would stay between 5-6v. I did put a timing light on plugs 1 and 2. They were both sparking every now and then, but more often than not they would not fire. Something is wrong with my ignition.

I swapped in the old points, still erratic spark on 1 and 2. I put an old coil on, STILL erratic sparking.

So why is it only sparking every once in a while? With the first pertronix coil, i had the plugs gapped at .45 I could bring them down to .30 Maybe the coil's are having trouble with the gap?

I checked to see if the distributor was bolted down tight and it was very tight.

What do you guys think?

 

[AZstang66]

Spark plug gap isn't going to cause an erratic spark.

Have you tried removing the pertronix and using mechanical points temporarily? Could be a faulty pertronix kit.

 

[Mercury Mike]

Only erratic spark on those two wires? Or all 6 were tested? It sounds like maybe the springs on the plate of the distributor are bad, as well as a possible break in the wire somewhere and while starting it shakes itself loose. Check the wire all the way from the ignition cylinder up to the coil. And then check the wires to the pertronix and make sure that it's hooked up right. Moe text me tomorrow I'll leave you my number in your inbox. I'll give you some real time help and we'll get it started. I'll bet anything it's a loose/corroded wire somewhere, with bad springs in the dizzy, or a grounding breaker plate, or something stupid like that. If you weren't in SD or a little closer to OC I'd come out there and hook you up but I don't have the gas money. Text me tomorrow.

 

[Mercury Mike]

I also had that problem when my ignition cylinder was going bad and I had to rebuild my cylinder (Yeah, I'm that good, I can rebuild the ignition cylinder hahahaha.