Positive Wire To Coil Overheating

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OldDart

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I know this is pretty basic to a lot of you and probably been gone over many times but, well, honestly I'm just lazy to do my own research!

Anyway, the hot wire to the distributor is getting hot (hopefully not damaged because was starting to melt!). I would assume the ballast resister needs to be replaced. I am hoping that I can get some pro advice so I can make sure it's right.

Here is a bit of history.
1) was very very hard to start when I first got it.
2) Found the coil was HOT and replaced it with one I had here. It looked new and said 'use external resistor' so I thought it would be fine because I saw a resister on the firewall.
3) Started right up. I'm in the process of fixing other stuff so it was not driven and rarely strated.
4) Recently noticed the wire smell and smoke

I was never that great at anything electrical.

Anyway, was planning to buy a resister and try that. Is there anything I should know or that I can test on the resister or coil either before or after to make sure it's all good. Hopefully it didn't fry the coil too.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.
 
What style/brand ignition system are you using?
 
Oh.... oops... 1970 Dart, 225-slant, stock-points
 
I'm not so electrically inclined either, but someone just told me that you rarely see coils with resistors except on VWs. So all of our cars probably have external resistors (or none at all in a few cases).
By all means, get a new resistor. They're so cheap. If it's not the problem, you will have eliminated one thing.
Just try not to melt your wires any more than you may have already!!
(and get more advice!!!)
 
Replace both the ballast resistor and the wire. I wouldn't trust any wire that has had any smoke escape from it. Learned that the hard way on a '79 Triumph Spitfire where the stock wiring was a couple decades behind my Dart in terms of wiring safety design.
 
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