Beware cheap coils!

Just curious, what did you want three for?......... A Wartburg, Saab or similar?

Two cars. No, that still sounds odd. One car has two coils mounted on the bulkhead, the idea being that one is there as a spare, with the official advice being to swap the leads between the two every year.

The other car only has one, but I use it as a wedding car, so it really does need to be reliable.

I'll be at Wollaton park autojumble tomorrow looking for NOS Lucas or Delco Remy.

In message , Kevin Poole writes

I thought "straight 12V" systems went out years ago - or have they come back? Ballast resistors were replaced by an in-line resistive lead, so full 12v was only applied when starting, thereafter the coil ran at about 9v. I am going back to my Renault 12 days but you do mention a "primitive" application.

I thought you measure the ohms and pick a ballast resistor to match to give the right voltage for the coil, but I've only got experience of about 3 or so coil-equipped vehicles! The pinz uses a 12v coil in a

24v system, on startup it shorts out the balance resistor to put 24v across the coil then once you take your finger off the start button, the ballast resistor brings it back down to about 12v.

We had a problem with a friend's Volvo C303, his new coil burned out in a year, looks like he'd been putting too much welly through it due to the wrong ballast resistor.

Yes - straight 12v systems have gone out of use, but all Series Land Rovers (at least the 12v ones) use 12v coils, with no ballast resistor or resistance lead. AFAIK ballast resistors made their entry in the sixties, but weren't universal till the mid-70s.

On or around Fri, 29 May 2009 21:42:05 +0100, Kevin Poole enlightened us thusly:

Assume that is the correct part number for a non-ballast, non-electronic coil?

The electronic ones have a different resistance, on V8 rangies, for example.

Now, to be fair, I've never had problems with Paddock replacing duff kit.

And they sent me an air spring minus the 2 clips that are meant to be in the box, I phoned them friday morning and said "can't see the clips anywhere", and the bloke said OK I'll send you 2 more. I asked if they could get 'em here by today, as I needed to fix the motor, and lo, this morning in the post was an envelope with 2 clips in. nice one.

And in a similar vein, don't rely on your new "Lucas" rotor arm. In another primitive world we've had two out of three new arms fail straight out of the box.

Gordon.

Yup. Various other tables and suppliers lists I've found seem to confirm it.

Indeed. Possibly different turns ratios and inductances too?

I've always been a great fan of Paddock - their willingness to ask "do you need...?" for the odd gasket or tab washer, because they've realised what job you're doing, has always impressed me. I've emailed them about the coils, rather than wait while they found someone on the phones who knew about ohms, but no acknowledgment after 5 days has left me a touch underwhelmed.

Funny that Gordon mentioned duff rotor arms: the day before the coil saga I'd had a "failure to proceed" at the roadside due to just that, but a genuine, original Delco Remy rotor arm which tracked through the arm to the distributor shaft. Originals are completely unobtainable, and poorish repro ones are about 40 quid, but fortunately Viva or GT6 ones fit and do the job.