> i'm working on a '68 olds delmont 88 that's been sitting in a garage
> unmoved/unstarted for nearly a decade.
>
> the starter cranks the engine nicely, but i'm not getting current to
> the coil. i determined this with a voltmeter. i didn't go further
> back in the circuit.
>
> my question for the group: what to look at next? my guess would be
> the breaker point in the distributor, as this grounds and ungrounds
> the coil circuit. another guess is the starter relay. could anything
> before the starter relay be the problem?
>
> also, i've been working with a chilton's manual and stockley^2 to
> figure things out. is there anyplace i can get schematics for
> this car? it's a bit of an oddball in the olds line (i think
> it was produced only in '67 and '68).
>
> many thanks,
> andreas
Keep in mind that most of my "old car" experience is with Studebakers but the same principles ought to apply. When you say you aren't getting current to the coil, do you mean that you're not getting voltage on the "+" terminal, or that you are getting voltage but no current is flowing? If the former I would suspect a flaky connection in the ignition switch and/or a bad ballast resistor/resistance wire. There
*is* a bypass on most starter solenoids that provides full battery voltage to the coil during cranking (because the current draw of the starter drops system voltage significantly.) You may also want to check that. A quick and nasty check would be to hotwire the coil + directly to battery + and crank it and see what happens. If you then have spark pull the ignition switch out of the dash and see what's going on there. I also suspect that the points are corroded, a few seconds with a points file (or emery board) should take care of that. Corroded points would be the number one suspect in the second case.good luck
nate