Thanks

Bad condensor causes pitted points.
Bad coil, worst case, no spark.
Other symptoms? Let's see what people say...

Turn key and all you get is NA na nannananana Crap
Turn key again Nannanananananananan Shit


Change to Compufire and big ass coil turn key Na-vroom VrOOOOMM.

just like under wear, if pick em up and give em a sniff and they smel bad change em, it's cheap.

Symptoms I've noticed: "The car runs like s--t!" "Hey, the points are all pitted!" "The tach keeps jumping and jumping, WTF?" "OK, the points and condensor are new and the car still runs like s--t!" "When testing the spark, all I see is a pathetic-looking orange one."

--DD

Coil test is bye eye...I am aure there is a meter out there somewhere....

Basically take a sparkplug and connect a plug wire to it...hold the plug against ground so the body of the plug is well grounded...

Watch the color of the spark...you are looking for a bright strong spark between blue and white...a yellow spark is a weak spark.

Condensor either works or does not work...

You can test the condensor by using a test light...

You are looking for the light to light up the negative side of the coil when the point open. If that happens, your condensor works.

Points cost 3-4 per set...get a few spares...I change at least twice a year.

Rich

Meter test with coil:

you should have resistance between 1 and 10 ohms between the + and - posts (no other wires connected). If you have infinite or zero resistance, you need a new coil.

Resistance between either + and - and the center post should be 15-30K ohms, not infinite, and not 0.

Note that this test doesn't guarantee the coil is good, only that it's bad.

I never test condensors, I just replace them.

Ah, Condensers....

Ya can get some funny effects from them...

My POS Honda Accord used to eat condensers like popcorn...

Condensor failure symptoms.... Drive down road, car begins to stumble and run rough, all the sudden there is this backfire down the exhaust... wham, it hits the first bend, wham, it hits the second bend, BOOOM... it blows the back off the muffler...... took out 2 mufflers that way....

Or, engine just stops dead and won't restart. Usually happens on a moutain road with extra steep grade, a rock wall on one side, and a 1000 foot dropoff on the other side and in a corner.... Don't ask how I know...

Those are the two types of failures I have seen.

Ken

The weather has been cold here in Virginia so my car has been mostly in the garage but the symptom I have is for the first 15 minutes or so my car drives fine, I can get all rpm, but then - I am guessing it has something to do with something getting hot - the car starts to sputter at higher rpms and begins to sputter a lower a lower rpms quickly over the next few minutes - then undriveable.

My coworker - a motorcycle nut - says either my coil or condensor may be getting hot and faulty.

Prior to this I had an mps go bad and replaced it with 049 - the funny thing it that the engine won't run with any other mps which leads me to think my ecu might be funky.

Anyway - thatnks for the condensor and coil responses - more trouble shooting is in order once time frees up and weather improves.

ok, check the MPS again...see if you blew out the one your using now...

I had a similar issue and I found it was the 30 year old grease in the distributor that was getting so sticky when hot that the advance plates would not move.

Take out dizzy plates, clean thm off, re-grease, re-istall.
It took my 1/2 hour and $0.05 of grease....car ran perfect (mind you I had replaced everything else at this point...and it still ran like crap)

I would go there first...car heats up, dizzy heats up...
dizzy binds up, car runs like crap.

It cost nothing. Go out, pull the dizzy and bring it inside where its warm.

BTDT.

Rich