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6 Volt or 12 Volt Coil

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You say that this is a Crane ignition? Can you put points in your car or is the Crane a replacement for a Lucas electronic ignition? If you can put points back in your dizzy I'd start with that. Get the car running on points then try and figure out what's causing the problem when you install the Crane system.
 
Flawless logic as usual, Doug. That'd condemn the iggy or point to "other causes" pretty quickly. Those wheel/pick-up units aren't the "best" thing for a spark trigger, IIRC.
 
Thanks for all of your help. It is now "fixed again". Sure hope it stays that way. I'll ask the hubby to write something in Word as to how he, and ya'll, got it going and and then I'll copy and paste here. You folks are the best /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Naomi, I meant to ask earlier, where in VA are you? I spent the last week in March traveling from Luray down to Natural Bridge during my kids spring break. I love that area. It was good to be back.

Do let us know what you guys found that got the car working again.
 
Doug, we live about 20 miles west of Martinsville---kinda stuck in the mountains--really the foot hills of the Blue Ridge /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

And you?
 
The coil that Brit-tek sent me is the Lucas DLB 105.

From their tip sheet;

"Because of the high failure rate of the stock electronic ignition, it is likely that your car has already been modified. With this in mind, we will go over how the final wiring should look like instead of what you might have going to it now. You want a White wire (no stripe) going to the Positive post of the coil. This should be hot when the key is on and should be delivering a 12-13 volts. (On the original systems this wire went to the finned aluminum drive resister.) You may leave the blue radio suppressor on the positive side if you use your radio. Disconnect and tape up the Blue/white wire and White/light green wires from the positive side of the coil. You will no longer need them. On the Negative post you will connect a wire to run down to your new Eurospec [a recurved distributor with POINTS) and keep attached the White/black wires that power your tach.

I just spoke with Bob at Brit-tek for the "Paul Harvey" rest of the story:

The ELECTRONIC ignition system was INDEED a 6 volt system; but if it was modified back to a points based distrib system you do need to change your coil to a 12 volt system. That finned aluminum resister is what dropped the voltage from 12 to 6 volt.

Hope this helps.

dz
 
So how far CAN you throw a finned aluminum heat sink resistor then? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jester.gif
 
i dunno... but I bet not as far as you can sling it with a wrist rocket /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif
 
As promised I've just copied and pasted (part of) a message the hubbby sent someone on how he, and ya'll, got the car going. Here goes: "Well it's running great and starting great. Here's the fix--Yesterday I removed the distributor, cleaned it up, made sure everything was working and it is, even the vacuum advance. Put it back in and then started on the wiring. Ohmed out every wire associated with the ignition, checked voltages, cleaned all connections, put dielectric grease on them. Next ohmed out all the spark plug wires and coil wire. Followed up with a complete check of the distributor cap and rotor button and cleaning even though they were new. Set the timing marks and rotor button to perfection and the LED light, sensor, and disk to correct settings. Checked firing by holding coil wire adjacent to ground and then the same with each plug. Great arc (blue this time). Connected timing light, plugged vacuum advance, and told Na to try it. The darn thing started up perfect and was sitting rock steady at 10 degrees before top dead center. Didn't even have to turn the distributor. Tightened down the collar and it's running great. It has been driven several times today and runs to perfection.
Now your turn, what fixed it? Beats all I've ever seen". /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
With mine (a points distrib) I did. Before I did I could never turn over 4100 rpm, now can actually get 6k.

dz
 
Curious indeed. The change from yellow to blue on the spark shows that you've got a lot better current flow and capacity through the system but I would have expected even the yellow spark to be enough to ignite the mix. Anyway, I'm glad you've got the car back on the road.

BTW, I live in Durham, NC. I just have a weakness for the VA mountains.
 
Doug, Durham is not that far away. You and the wife come on up for a cruise on the Blue Ridge Parkway and I'll bring the picnic---now how can you turn down that offer /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
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