Coil temp

Sep 01, 2006 2 Replies
A

I've been working on finding an intermittent mis in my rebuilt engine in my bug. Some times it runs a little rough like it has a fouled plug on one cylinder and won't idle even though it's up to temp. Then as suddenly as it starts this behavior, it clears up and runs fine. It's a bit strange to say the least but I'm just getting into diagnosing the problem.



Anyway today I noticed that the ignition coil was getting hotter than I think it should. I can touch it but it's too hot to keep my hand on. It's a Bosch blue coil marked 12v. I'd have to take it off to get any more info.



My only frame of reference is motorcycle coils and they get warm but not so warm that I couldn't keep my hand on them. I have over 15 years of professional air cooled experience but 99% of it is on 2 wheels and surprisingly little carries over..



Any ideas?



Tony


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O

you might need an external ballast resistor on it. I think I have had to do that with the red Bosch coils but am not sure about the blue ones. AND I have seen some wired backwards too. which plugs are you running?

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A

I'm going to pull it off tomorrow morning and look for any numbers that I can look up and see if it's wired incorrectly. I'm pretty sure I have it wired the way it's supposed to be but you never know... Also I bought this coil because it wasn't supposed to need a ballast resister but it wouldn't be the first time I was sold the wrong part.

Somewhere in my junk I have an Accel Super Coil (I know it takes a ballast resistor.) It's massive and I took it off my old Z-Car because the weight of it caused it to bounce around and it was cracking the place on the inner fender where it was mounted. I might be able to find a solid enough spot for it on the Baja, if I try hard enough. ;o)

I'm running the regular Bosch plugs but I just picked up a set of Bosch platinum plugs that I'm going to install tomorrow morning.

I suspect the misfiring problem is from the idle circuit cut off not having a clean connection and I'm going to replace that wire while I'm at it and add a ground wire to the carb. The problem comes and goes and there isn't any pattern to it I can find so I'm going to cover all the basics and see if I can nail it...

Tony

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