HELP........................................

Well, let me start from the begining.

I got my head on the car and was making adjustments on the valves. I decided to disconnect the power wire from the coil to the dizzy to keep the motor from firing while I cranked it. ( I was cranking it to try to pump up the hydraulic lifters. ) When I though I had the valves all adjusted properly, I re-connected the power wire to the coil and tried to start the motor. Nothing happened. I had my wife turn the motor over while I check for spark at the plug wires and the main coil wire, still nothing there. I called the local Checker Store and they suggested I check the power at the coil with a test light. They said the test light should be brighter on the (+) side than the (-) side on the coil. This was not the case. In fact it was just the opposite. The guys from Checker said it might be the coil (Pertronix Flame Thrower). I bought a new coil from Checker and installed it. Still nothing. Nothin from the plug wires or the coil wire, but this time both the (+) and (-) lit the test light almost equally. The guys at checkers said that they thought it had to be the Pertronix II unit.
I still have the original points for the dizzy and will try to get them in there this AM. I looked at the Pertronix website for troubleshooting and it was really vague and of little help. I checked our forums for troubleshooting and there really was nothing there but slams on Pertronix. I loved the little Pertronix II and had no problems with it till now, I still don't know if it is what is causing my no spark condition. Anyhow, if anyone can give me some pointers on adjusting the points for now and possibly give me some troubleshooting tips for the Pertronix unit I would really appreciate it.
I really need to get this thing running so I can determine if I need to make any further adjustment to the rockers.
Thanks
Ted

Got a dwell meter? Set the points dwell if you do. Otherwise, do the following:

Otherwise, rotate the motor until the points are fully open (ie, resting on one of the six distributor breaker cam tips. Turn off the ignition. Adjust your points' position on the breaker plate until this gap is around 20 thou. Tighten the securing screw and recheck. Now turn the motor until the rubbing block of the points is on a cam flat. The points should be well closed.

Remove the coil lead from the centre of the dizzy cap. Leave its other end connected to the coil. Turn on the ignition and with an insulate screwdriver, push the points open. You should see/hear a spark from the now-exposed end of the coil lead, to a ground.

If not, you may have a problem with voltage supplied to the coil, or the points, or the condenser.

Adam.

p.s. I thought the response time was pretty good!

Check the voltage to your coil, early Fords have a inline resistor wire lowering your 12V to 6v to the coil. As these cars age, on some systems the voltage is even lower and the Pertronix won't work IIRC below 4.6 volts. Search this site for Pertronix wiring information. Someone posted a good diagram of how to correctly wire your Pertronix to 12v's the stock wire to the coil is not 12v when it gets to the coil, that's why (very vague) Pertronix instructions read to wire it to a switched 12v source, what they should have printed for early ford users it that the stock switched source is not 12v......Hope this helps, yet this may still not be your problem, it should be corrected either way.....

Thanks guys for your helpful posts. I went ahead and pulled out the pertronix II and put the original points back into the dizzy. The car fired right up. I still have some timing adjustments to smooth things out a little, and as my luck would have it, there is still a little clatter under the valve cover. LOL
Now as for the wiring of the Pertronix II. There are only 2 wires for the control modual. One wire goes to the + side of the coil and the other goes to the - side of the coil. That's all there was to it. I can't see how that could be a problem.
Now having said that, those of you using the Duraspark II, what advantage is there using the DS II -VS- using the Pertronix II? Because up till now, I have had no problems with the Pertronix II or the Flame Thrower coil. Maybe my unplugging just the main wire going from the coil to the dizzy caused something to wrong. Maybe I should have disconnected the wires going to the + and - posts on the coil as well. Maybe it had something to do with the distance between the magnetic inductor and the control modual being greater than the recommended distance. (I was thinking about modifying the adjustment hole to allow me to adjust the modual closer to the inductor) Having said that, though, it was working fine before I noticed the distance.
So again, now that I am back to the original points, thinking about getting another pertronix unit, can anyone tell me why I should go with the DS II?
Ted

Why? Hmm, I dunno, my personal experience shows it's pretty dang reliable. Sure, there are those who will tell you about failed modules, but I have never experienced one.

I have one on the 200 in my Falcon and have a D-II module in my truck that's going on 20yrs old. I like the wide terminal spacing on the cap, timing retard during startup (if you add the additional wire), and dirt cheap junk yard prices (less than $30 for a complete setup for my 200). Personally, I've read of too many first hand accounts of Pertronix failures to bother with them.

Just my opinion and we all know what "they" say about opinions - everyone has one.

Thanks Phil!!!

Here is my comparison of the two. I ran both, and no real performance difference.

http://www.kastang.net/pertvds2.html

Slade

There are many thousands of satisfied users of the Pertronix ignition. I have never used one myself, but have no reason to believe they are all bad. Their main advantage over the DS11 is to be able to retain the stock appearance, plus they are (slightly) easier to install than the DS11. The DS11 has a theoretical advantage by virtue of the larger diameter distributor cap allowing higher voltage to be developed without cross firing between the terminals. The Pertronix also allows a quick change back to points in the event of a failure.
Joe

I've seen people burn out their Pertronix module by disconnecting the battery while their car was running (the age-old alternator/charging system test), but if just cranking the engine without giving the spark a place to ground to can hurt one I haven't heard about it. Or maybe you did ground the coil wire while cranking the engine?

Ok, I got the valves adjusted and learned something new about the valve cover I am using. It took all of 30 minutes to adjust the valves and 5 minutes to figure out why it was still ticking. The rocker(s) are hitting the oil shield on the under side of the valve cover. The mechanic that adjusted the rockers said that it was nothing to worry about, that in time the rocker would wear a groove into the splash shield and that it would cause no harm. I figured I would go in there with a dremel tool and clean it up so that it is no longer making contact.

Thanks again for everyone's help.

Ted

"Check the voltage to your coil, early Fords have a inline resistor wire lowering your 12V to 6v to the coil. As these cars age, on some systems the voltage is even lower and the Pertronix won't work IIRC below 4.6 volts. "
"There are only 2 wires for the control modual. One wire goes to the + side of the coil and the other goes to the - side of the coil. That's all there was to it. I can't see how that could be a problem. "

The resistor wire mentioned is behind the dash usually and keeps the voltage to the coil down so the points don't burn up. On my tbird, the voltage was below 5v, redoing the wiring to bypass the resistance wire was probably the most significant upgrade I've made to the car, doubling the voltage to the coil makes a big difference. If you are trying to upgrade to electronic ignition you should bypass that wire. If you must have some resistance the chrysler style ceramic voltage regulators work pretty well. I recommend the duraspark distributor and gm module personally, the directions can be found in the tech section. Hope this helps