Stop in for a cup of coffee
@halifaxhops or anyone else, any way to check a condenser in a points dizzy to see if it’s good?
Make sure the points are open, Disconnect the wire from the points to the coil, and make sure it does not touch anything. Then take a separate wire from the battery plus, or whatever pole on the battery that is NOT connected to groun, and hold it there for a couple of seconds then remove the wire. After that take a volt meter and turn the knob to the closest to 12 volt but more than 12 volt (unless it has autorange), hold the black test wire to ground of engine, and the red one to the screw on the points where the wire to the condenser is connected. In the moment you touch the red test probe to the screw you should see the needle fly up towards 12 volt and then go down fairly fast if it is a fairly simple analog volt meter. If the voltmeter is a very advanced one, it might read 12 volt or even higher depending on the battery voltage and then stay there for quite longer, but it will go down.
If it is a digital voltmeter it will also rear 12 volt, but start counting down and go towards 0 at the end, just like the analog one also will end at 0 volt finally.
It is does this, the condenser is most likely ok, even if you have not really measured the value of it. But, you have confirmed that you managed to charge the condenser, like if it was a battery, and you have confirmed that it decharges if you connect the voltmeter on DC voltage. If the voltmeter reads nothing, you can perform the test once more and see, but if the problem is still there after the second test, either the condenser is faulty or you have a shortening in your distributor, so the next step would be to take the condenser out of the distributor, and hold the housing to the minus of a battery, and the little wire to the plus, and remove it without touching the wires. Then hold the black voltmeter probe to the condenser housing, and the red one to the end of the wire. The needle should go up, and then down, or the figures should get up towards 12 volt, and then start counting down. If the voltage does not goes up anything at all, the condenser is faulty.
Remember, do not use more than 12 volt on the condenser. It is made for a bit more, but who knows how much more it is made for. On condensers in electronic equipment it is said on the condenser how much voltage it is made for, but not on the ones for a cars ignition system.
Bill