I figured I had fried my Mallory optical module with a battery charger, and so I just replaced it with brand new. Still no spark. With key on, I getting 12v at the neg side of the coil and on the primary. I had my fuel pump powered off the pos side of the coil, and was seeing a V drop down to just under 6 when that was on it. Moved the power source to the relay board. Now seeing 12v. Still no spark.

What the hell else should I check? Could I have fried the module on first power up?

What triggers your spark? Regular points? Pertronix? Other?

Try swapping in points and condenser (or a new set if you're using points) and see what happens.

--DD

The mallory dizzy is the optical pickup kind. NEver had points. I was going to swap in my old pertronix equiped 009, but it appears one of the dizzy cap clips has gone missing.

Have you tried the Unilite Test Procedure ?

I have fried a unit on first power up. Irritating to say the least!

Yeah, and it appears to be non-operative. Is Mallory also maybe shipping bad modules?

For what its worth, my old 009 with pertronix aint working either.

Last time I thought a module went bad it ended up being my coil

Got her running with the 009 and points. Looks like I may have mistaken the power wire to the dizzy with the tach wire. Old red and old purple look the same.

Are points availible for the mallory dizzy? I am kinda fed up with the optical pick ups.

Ugh! Yeah, been there done that. I always remember that the wire that carries the power is thicker, and the one that carries the signal is thinner.

--DD

Yeah, I should have realized that. Better marking of things is called for.

Wonder if my mallory is NOT fried?

They make a Pertronix II for a Mallory distributor. They aren't as delicate and work with a hall effect magnet instead of an LED. The II version doesn't fry if you hook it up backwards or if you leave the key on without the engine running.

Not positive but I think the Mallory YL 4 cyl distributor all takes this model:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pertronix-9ML-141C...CjL&vxp=mtr

Thanks. This is quite interesting. I wonder if the variable dwell would give better performance than the mallory optical module.

I started with a dual point because you can't buy a unilite unless you can find one used. Used VW single point and dual points are cheap and easy to find. I also went with the Mallory low empedence coil and found a curve kit with the gray springs. I definitely performs better that the Bosch distributor that it replaced. It starts easier when cold and hold an idle faster. It also seems to work better at high rpm.

I think you might have to buy a rotor for a regular distributor to make it work unless that hat piece on the unilite is removable.