Hi guys, in the weekend i tried to hook up a rev counter out of blue wreck i have just in the engine bay with old wire, buggered it up and the wires were smoking! Anyway car wont start now, no spark. coil tests ok and power good to coil, fuses all good, just no spark. Cant figure it out as quick as I want to, any suggestions??

Hey mate, I'd probably first check for continuity (with a multimeter) of the low tension lead (small wire) from the distributor side of coil to distributor and also check low tension continuity through distributor when the points are closed. If the points are closed you should get a reading from dist. side of coil to any earth on the car/block. If that's fine, it may be the condenser. If you don't have a spare one lying around to quickly replace, you can diagnose it by checking for a spark jumping across the points if you manually open them with ignition on. To do this, disconnect condenser and make sure the points are closed (follower on back of cam lobe). You may have to roll the car a little in top gear to turn the distributor to where you want it. Then turn ignition on (to power up coil), and separate points manually by prying apart with a small screwdriver. If all is well, you should see a small spark jump across the points. If spark is good here, I would limit the number of times you repeat exercise as the spark without condenser will not do your points any good. It will be fine to do a few times though. If the condenser is faulty you probably won't get any spark here, or at best you might see a very small weak spark.

Good luck!

Hey mate cheers for the info, have checked continuity between coil and dist. At first I got a reading so then checked between coil and earth but didnt get anything. Tried opening points after disconnecting condensor but no little spark. Then started again at cont. test coil to dist. and now nothing, however power on both sides of coil and down at distributor. Thinking the no reading thing may be cheap repco multimeter? I think if the power is going down to the distributor, it may be the distributor at fault? If i get time tomorrow may replace condensor, and maybe the points and see what happens.

have also cranked engine over by hand with test light on coil (dist. side) and shouldnt the light go on and off with the points opening and closing? Is there a short somewhere?

(light is just staying on)

The test light would just stay on if connected between coil (either side) and earth as when you do this, you're by-passing the points which are the switch. The points become redundant in this case. I assume this is how you connected the test light anyway.

Keep trying to isolate all the circuits. Another/sometimes better way to check continuity is to use the voltmeter function instead of resistance/continuity. You should be able to read a voltage drop from any live wire and earth (while the ignition is on of course). It's often better to do this because it shows that the wire has some capacity to pass current. If you're just checking continuity, you'll most likely get the same reading with a good connection as you will with a bad one, as long as there is a connection present. So perhaps try for voltage drops (with multimeter set to 20v scale) all along the ignition circuit. Just keep honing in on where the discontinuity is. Try the low tension wire alone, then from outside dizzy to points, points to earth etc. Just track your way down the circuit from the coil.

Sounds like you're on the right track. You'll get there eventually!

okay, got some time to have another go, voltage between small wire at coil and dizzy is 11.3, ignition on, put probe on points and nothing there, have taken condensor off before this, and put a spare in, old condensor had no ohms reading but spare did, and still no spark. Must be something simple but cant nut it out!

bump and help please!

Still no luck hey? Must be frustrating you more than a little by now. How about the high tension leads? Particularly from coil to distributor (Can't remember if you'd previously mentioned this or not....). however, sounds like you might have some connection problems inside the distributor itself if you're having trouble getting consistent good readings. There's not a whole lot of wiring inside the dist. though so don't worry too much. The low tension lead that enters the dist. just connects to the points in some fashion. That's it. See if you can isolate good continuity between contact face on coil side of points and small wire exiting dist. or just the coil itself. Then check earth side contact face of points and and a good earth on chassis. If they're both good I'd imagine there's no trouble in distributor.

Also, I'm not sure if you'd had the points out, but be mindful that they need to be insulated from the body of distributor. Just be sure that the small plastic insulating washers that hold points in are in the correct position and in tact. They should be right if you haven't played with the points yet though.

Keep us posted how you go,

Stu

Cheers for the help stumack, ended up being the points, had a mechanic mate tell me to disconnect dist. wire from coil, earth coil out while checking for spark out of a spark plug lead. There was a faint weak spark, so I thought it couldnt be points or distributor, as it seemed to be out of the equation. Anyway, replaced points and started up straight away!