YoungDart75
Well-Known Member
I am measuring 5.1V at the positive lead on the coil with the engine off and the key in the "on" position, and yes I set the air gap with a brass feeler just like it said to use in the manual.
After looking through the diagram in the manual and it showing where the wires run and everything I began basically unwrapping all the electric tape that was covering the ignition system and that's where the fun began. First I found this(pay close attention to the blue wire in the middle of the picture) about 8" down the wire after it leaves the firewall connection.
I'm not old enough to have been born when these cars were made but does that look like something a new factory car would have? I traced out the blue wires one ran to the ballast resistor, one ran up the drives side to the little vacuum thing( cant remember the name of it right now)
and then the other went to the passenger side where I found this, yet another splicing together of this one wire into multiple other wires. All 3 look to lead to the 3 boxes on the passenger side fenderwell. Yet again not something I thought id be seeing from a factory harness. So I am in full wtf did the last owner hack up the harness for.
After I got done tracing that out I measured the voltage at the splicing on the passenger side and voltage was still good.
I went back and corrected myself and the bottom right connection on the ballast resistor that is supposed to be the feed for the coil + terminal was a brown wire. So I traced the brown wire over to the passenger side of the bay and began peeling back the electrical tape to see if there were any issues with the brown wire. Then I fine a cluster **** after I get the tape off where it has two exposed wire sections essentially just hand twisted together and wrapped in electrical tape. Had to take a break at this point because I was a little pissed that one of the previous owners had thought this was sufficient. After cutting the wire to clean it up I noticed a considerable size difference in the two wires. So I began tracing again and it led me here
where it goes into the firewall and then comes back out and connects to the positive terminal on the coil( you could see why I was upset). Then it registered someone had the damn positive coil wire running to something inside the car and then back out to connect to the coil. So I measured the on the thicker brown wire that originally came straight from the ballast and boom 11 volts when the key was in the "on" position. So the whole reason I'm not getting enough voltage to the + terminal on the coil is because they had rerouted the brown wire carrying the coil + voltage to something under the passenger side dash and then had a much smaller gauge wire come back out and connected to the coil's + terminal. It got a little late and by the time I got off the phone with the original owners of the car, it was too late for me to keep messing with it. But come to find out the original owner had installed a fuel cutoff switch under the dash on the glove box side and thought tapping into that wire for 12v power would be best. So ill be reconnecting it all properly tomorrow, making sure I remove the switch properly and testing it out to see if that solves my issue. But it also makes me wonder if its been hooked up for a long time why did it wait until now to finally be an issue?
After looking through the diagram in the manual and it showing where the wires run and everything I began basically unwrapping all the electric tape that was covering the ignition system and that's where the fun began. First I found this(pay close attention to the blue wire in the middle of the picture) about 8" down the wire after it leaves the firewall connection.
I'm not old enough to have been born when these cars were made but does that look like something a new factory car would have? I traced out the blue wires one ran to the ballast resistor, one ran up the drives side to the little vacuum thing( cant remember the name of it right now)
and then the other went to the passenger side where I found this, yet another splicing together of this one wire into multiple other wires. All 3 look to lead to the 3 boxes on the passenger side fenderwell. Yet again not something I thought id be seeing from a factory harness. So I am in full wtf did the last owner hack up the harness for.
After I got done tracing that out I measured the voltage at the splicing on the passenger side and voltage was still good.
I went back and corrected myself and the bottom right connection on the ballast resistor that is supposed to be the feed for the coil + terminal was a brown wire. So I traced the brown wire over to the passenger side of the bay and began peeling back the electrical tape to see if there were any issues with the brown wire. Then I fine a cluster **** after I get the tape off where it has two exposed wire sections essentially just hand twisted together and wrapped in electrical tape. Had to take a break at this point because I was a little pissed that one of the previous owners had thought this was sufficient. After cutting the wire to clean it up I noticed a considerable size difference in the two wires. So I began tracing again and it led me here
where it goes into the firewall and then comes back out and connects to the positive terminal on the coil( you could see why I was upset). Then it registered someone had the damn positive coil wire running to something inside the car and then back out to connect to the coil. So I measured the on the thicker brown wire that originally came straight from the ballast and boom 11 volts when the key was in the "on" position. So the whole reason I'm not getting enough voltage to the + terminal on the coil is because they had rerouted the brown wire carrying the coil + voltage to something under the passenger side dash and then had a much smaller gauge wire come back out and connected to the coil's + terminal. It got a little late and by the time I got off the phone with the original owners of the car, it was too late for me to keep messing with it. But come to find out the original owner had installed a fuel cutoff switch under the dash on the glove box side and thought tapping into that wire for 12v power would be best. So ill be reconnecting it all properly tomorrow, making sure I remove the switch properly and testing it out to see if that solves my issue. But it also makes me wonder if its been hooked up for a long time why did it wait until now to finally be an issue?
