I am amazed, and Oh Darn

On Wed, 07 Apr 2004 08:06:24 -0700, "Mike Rocket J. Squirrel Elliott" ran around screaming and yelling:

ANT...but he is not around anymore.... JT

12V gets fed to the + side of the coil. the - side gets periodically grounded by the points in the dist.

Check your tach wire, as it may have rubbed thru somewhere grounding things. See if the car runs if you disconnect that wire at the coil.

Check the point just to make sure they weren't loose and closed down on you.

The tach was a pretty good hint.

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----------------------------------------------- Jim Adney snipped-for-privacy@vwtype3.org Madison, WI 53711 USA

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Hi Jim,

Posted an update yesterday. To summarize: Disconnecting the tach didn't help, and the points were showing proper open/close as evidenced by dizzie green wire voltage swinging between +12 and ground as crank was hand-rotated. Coil was working as evidenced by drawing arc from #3 plug to chassis. Rotor seated, timing (static) fine. Yet no op. SVDA dizzie pulled, 009 plugged in, bus ran and got me home. Last night points examined carefully, no problem seen. Per Aircooled John's suggestion, new points installed (009 ones fit), new condenser installed, and as of today, new dizzie runs fine. My guess (suggested by Ollie, I think) is that the condenser got weird when it heated up.

Thanks for your troubleshooting ideas!!!

"Mike Rocket J. Squirrel Elliott" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@adelphia.com:

Sounds like a good reason to go with a pertronics or compufire unit to me.

Lookin' into it.

Is the distributor green wire in ground potential all the time when this "not running" condition is on and you rotate the engine and the points open?

If it runs for 15 minutes and then dies, it might be heat related. It it is grounded all the time and you see the points open, there is a short circuit inside the dizzy or the condensator shorts when it heats up.

Yep, well, all I can say is that when it failed, I connected Ye Olde Voltmeter to the green dizzie wire and hand-cranked the engine. Voltage switched between +12 and 0, as it should. Had a friend do the starter and drew an arc from plug wire #4 and chassis. So I had spark. Yet the engine would not start. Removed the SVDA, plugged in the 009 and the engine started. The dizzie clamp was nice and tight so it's not likely that the timing drifted. Dunno. Replaced the points and condenser on the SDVA, put it back in, set the timing again and it's now been peachy for two days. I am packing the 009 just in case . . . but all seems to be well.

IT BAFFLES SCIENCE.