Hi, I had a fuel fire in my stock 1975 last year. Burned for about 40 seconds before I put it out. I fired it up after I put it out just for the heck of it and it still ran, then I shut it down and put it away for a year.

Needless to say a lot of stuff was melted/damaged. I replaced everything that was melted including the wiring harness, put in new fuel hoses, and a bunch of melted misc stuff.

The car is now at my mechanics house and he is trying to get it started. We don't seem to have adequate spark. At first it seemed weak, replaced the coil, condenser and points and now we have no spark.

Went over the wiring and think it is correct, points are opening and closing, 12 v on the coil.

Not sure what is going on now. Seems like we should have spark. Anybody have any ideas. Maybe we have the wiring mixed up? I have the current flow diagram but not the usual wiring schematic.

Anybody have a picture of the stock coil wiring from a 1975 1.8 ljet?

thanks in advance for any help,

Mike from NJ

Many variables to consider, being that this car caught fire. However since you stated that the car started up after this fire, makes me believe that the mechanic changed something.

On the ignition coil you should have 2 terminals, one being (-) and the other (+). The positive side of the ignition coil, there should be one wire. On the other side of the ignition coil, you should have 3 wires (one from the points, the tachometer, and a signal wire leading back to the Ljet ECU). I would first try by isolating, which requires one to temporary remove all wires from the (-) post of the ignition coil. I'm not sure where this fire localized, but if the wiring harness inside the tunnel melted, it's possible that the tach wire is shorting out to chassis ground. With all the wires off, test the voltage at the (+) side of the ignition coil (key in the on position), while the negative lead of the volt meter is on the negative battery post. If you have a solid 12 volts, go ahead and reinstall just one wire coming from the distributor back on the (-) terminal post on the ignition coil.

If you have spark, continue by adding one wire at a time. The tach wire should be black and purple, and I believe the signal wire for the Ljet ECU should be white. If you add the black/purple wire back to the ignition coil, and you lose spark, then you have a short somewhere in the tunnel. Conversely, if you add the white wire to the ignition coil, and you lose spark, you have a short in the FI harness.

With all that being said and you don't have spark with all the wires off, except for the dizzy points wire, it's possible your newly installed pointed are burnt. Leaving the ignition switch on too long with the engine not running, will ruin points. There is also a braided copper wire inside the dizzy that grounds the point plate, which could be broken. The condenser coil could also be shorted. These are things to consider. Best of luck

Pictures of the new harness and connections will help too. Fried Ign. switch is another place to check. Do you still have a seatbelt relay under the passenger seat?

Thanks guys, the melted tach wire is a good possibility, and I will forward this info to my friend in the morning and see what happens when he removes the wires. I will also ask him to take a picture. The ignition switch is currently replaced with a toggle switch so I don't think that is an issue.

I do still have the seatbelt switch under the seat.