Troubleshooting an electronic ignition

[bcooke]

Is there any way to check and see if the Ignitor electronic ignition is working properly?

I installed the Ignitor a few years ago and it has worked flawlessly.

I attempted to start my engine this spring after a three season layover and got nothing.

No spark at the spark plug when cranking.

No spark at the coil output with the engine cranking.

If I put 12v momentarily to the coil I can generate a spark.

Per Ignitor instructions, I ran a jumper from the battery to the coil to make sure it was getting enough voltage.

Seems to me the coil isn't getting an input signal. Is there any way to check this without throwing a new Ignitor system at it? Now where did I put those old points?...

The Ignitor tech support page mentions that there may be an excessive gap between the rotating magnet and the sensor. Any way to check it? Any way to adjust it?

Putting an ohm meter across the wires to the Ignitor sensor I read 2.5M ohms. I have no idea what this means or if this is normal. I thought I might have a broken wire under the insulation but I cut them near the sensor and still get the same reading.

The engine has recently been rewired but everything is checking out fine. Voltage and grounds everywhere they are supposed to be.

Any thoughts?

[Mark S]

I think the Ignitor comes with a feeler gauge with which to set the space between the magnet and the module. If you still have it, that would be an easy check. (Hmmm . . . where's my feeler gauge?)

Mark S

[bcooke]

Interesting. I read something about checking the gap but when I downloaded the instructions I didn't see anything like that mentioned.

Thanks for the tip.

[bcooke]

The simplest way to troubleshoot the electronic ignition is just to order a new (spare) one. Moyer Marine had a new one in my hands in two days.

Unfortunately that didn't fix the problem so I am going to have to go deeper.

For the benefit of the thread, I am hosting some instructions I got from Pertronix for troubleshooting their Ignitor electronic ignition system (currently available in the Moyer Marine online catalog). I thought it was pretty useful information and might save someone the expense of buying an extra electronic ignition module.

You can find an Adobe format diagram here

And a different Word document here