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67 Sprite Electrical Problems.... HELP

turns31

Freshman Member
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I have a 67 Sprite that I am currently working on that is giving me trouble. I converted it to a negative ground about a month ago and it ran perfectly fine after that. Then I swapped the generator for a sbc alternator to give it some more juice to power the radio and amplifier. I also put on an Accel super blaster coil and did a typical tune up. (Plugs, wires) Every since the alternator and coil were put in, it runs like crap at anything but idle. It misses and wants to die constantly until it gets warm. Also, the battery is getting drained from somewhere and the coil stays hot even with the key off. It is almost too hot to touch. If anyone can shed some light on these problems that would be great...Gracias
 
Do you have an internal or external ballast resistor on the coil? If it is staying hot with key off, I suspect that is your problem - can you swap in the old coil and try? My car is negative ground so I forget the exact order of events, though just pulled this from another site

Look at the wiring on the ignition coil. One side is probably marked SW (SWitch and the other is probably marked CB (Contact Breaker). Your ignition coil may be marked with a + (plus) and a - (minus), instead of SW and CB, as it may have had the coil replaced at some time. Reverse these wire connections. You will test this arrangement at the conclusion of these swaps, to ensure that the coil is wired correctly. If you got it wrong, the car will still run... but not as well.

Now go back to the battery, and connect the ground cable connection to the negative side of the battery.

for sure you have a short somewhere but, let's start with the coil.
 
BTW you should have an external ballast on that car - isn't that correct folks?
 
:iagree: Points is a good idea. Coil wired wrong could also cause poor running. I don't think the '67 had any ballast though. In fact if you have a ballast type coil and are hitting it with the full 12 volts then it will run hot. But if it stays hot with the key off (and a reasonable time to cool down) then you must have something wired wrong. That seems unlikely if the engine stops when you turn it off.
 
My little ignition light in my gauge bezel is turned on when the key is off and is off when the key is in the on position. Could that be the result of an alternator wired wrong?
 
Yeah, that's pretty certain.

If you're following the instructions at that link, it's not a great surprise that something is wired wrong. I can't figure out what the guy is trying to say.

Generally, in any alternator installation you need to (1) connect the output directly to the main +12V circuit (battery + terminal) and (2) connect the ignition idiot-light circuit to the alternator. Occasionally, there will be a "sense" terminal that has to be connected to the point where you want to sense the system voltage. Occasionally, you'll encounter something else, but 95% of the time, that's all there is to it.

Take a look in the Wiki, where there is an article, or do a search for some of the other stuff on the internet. There's a lot of info available on making this mod.
 
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