??Ballast/balast??

[JOHN COOKSON]

Yet More Advice

You could have a bad condenser that is shorting to ground in which case the circut will not be broken when the points open = no spark. I would go for new points and condenser right off the bat.

To test the coil: with the points closed and the key on (or the jumper wire connected) hold the center lead from the coil near the engine or some other ground. Flick the points open and let them snap closed. You should see a spark. Keep at it untill you get a spark in this manner.

TRUE GRIT
I see you have electronic ignition so forget the tests with the points.

[hanleyclifford]

Even on an engine with electronic ignition there is a dwell specification and it can be checked.

[ndutton]

But can it be adjusted?

[sastanley]

don't dwell on it

hanley & neil, since we are on this topic, I want to make sure I understand...Dwell is the duration in time (in degrees, I assume out of one 360 degree rotation) that the ignition is firing to each cylinder, correct??

[hanleyclifford]

Dwell

Neil - I have never had electronic ignition so I do not know if it can be adjusted. In one of his posts Don Moyer speaks of elecronic ignition having a greater dwell than standard point ignition.
Shawn - After reading the link Neil provided, I may have a misunderstanding of what dwell actually is. All my life I thought dwell was defined as the number of crankshaft degrees the points stay closed for each cylinder, but the link says open. This I do know: as I decrease the point gap, the dwell reading rises. I adjust points until I get the factory dwell specification no matter what the point gap has to be to get it.

[ndutton]

Dwell is the amount of distributor rotation in degrees that the points remain open (according to the link, like Hanley I always thought it was closed too). It is commonly set by adjusting the point gap with the points shoe at the peak of the distributor shaft lobe but as Hanley mentions, far more accurately with a dwell meter.

The link I included in post #15 mentions a sliding window in the distributor cap - common on Delco caps but not ours. One of our innovative members has addressed this by carefully drilling a hole in the cap at the proper location and angle to allow an allen wrench to access the point adjustment screw.


Hanley, I have electronic ignition and there are no adjustments. I suppose it could be checked with a dwell meter and some idea of what reading to expect but if it's out of spec the only remedy is replacement.

edit 2 years later
Unfortunately that little hole defeats the ignition proof feature of the distributor cap. Placing a screen over the hole restores ignition proofing however. I'm not privy to the screen specifications except that it is metallic

[hanleyclifford]

A challenge

Neil - I am going to go out on the limb and say - we are right and the link is wrong: dwell is number of crankshaft degees the points remain closed.

Edit: We are right! Do the google- except I was wrong about which degrees - distributor degrees is correct, not crankshaft.

[13jeff13]

Neil - I have never had electronic ignition so I do not know if it can be adjusted. In one of his posts Don Moyer speaks of elecronic ignition having a greater dwell than standard point ignition.
Shawn - After reading the link Neil provided, I may have a misunderstanding of what dwell actually is. All my life I thought dwell was defined as the number of crankshaft degrees the points stay closed for each cylinder, but the link says open. This I do know: as I decrease the point gap, the dwell reading rises. I adjust points until I get the factory dwell specification no matter what the point gap has to be to get it.

So then you are saying that it dwells longer as you close the gap.?
Makes sense,, as it was my understanding that if you increased the dwell, you lengthen the duration the gap stays closed. It dwells, as in waits, there longer,, before opening again.