Ken G's Journal

The car hasn't been starting for a few weeks but I really hadn't had a lot of time to spend on this issue. When I determined that the car wasn't getting power to the plugs at all I realized that the issue is more than just bad timing.
I "guessed" that I had maybe fried the points, condenser or the coil while doing other testing so that is where I started. I checked the coil and had power on both positive and negative posts. I then decided to pull the distributor and check that over, clean and re-gapped the points to .017.
After getting the Distributor back into the car. (I have the darnedest time getting it to align and slide in. There must be a trick.) I set the static timing.
Thinking I had it covered, I tried to start the engine and well it was the same. Turns over great, but no ignition and no spark to the plugs. Annoying..

I then checked the wires to the coil to make sure they were good and tight, positive from the fuse box, center to distributor, negative to distributor, all tight on the post, but I noticed that the negative wire at the coil was bent at a sharp angle. I tested the continuity of the wire and got nothing. The wire was broken but it was covered by heat tape and I hadn't noticed.

I replaced this 8 inch piece of wire and had spark and combustion!!!. I wasn't able to to get it to stay running but it was great to see some life.