Re: Re: 400D won't start -- electrical stumper

Posted by David Bean on October 06, 2002 at 06:44:41 from (209.179.157.134):

In Reply to: Re: 400D won't start -- electrical stumper posted by justin on October 05, 2002 at 16:26:11:

Justin,

Yep, that makes sense. After I posted my problem, I found my old auto mechanics 101 book and read up on breaker points ignition and condensers, and I'm now sure that the condenser is bad.

If I understand things correctly, the condenser's job as a capacitor is to gain charge the moment the points separate...without this ability to take some of the current away, the voltage would try to jump the gap on the points, leading to arcing and, most importantly, not stopping the current flow quickly enough to cause the coil's primary field to collapse in a controlled manner, thereby not allowing the secondary field to generate the big voltage hit that the spark plugs need.

And that's why I'm not seeing an arc from the high voltage end of two brand new coils and it's why I *am* seeing an arc at the points -- the breaker point ignition system isn't doing it's job, so the coil doesn't get triggered correctly. AHA! (Ain't a little knowledge a wonderful thing?!)

So, I'll replace the condenser for sure, and I might just replace the rest of the ignition unit while I'm at it.

By the way, you're right about the manifold switch -- it's clearly shorted to ground. I'm just going around it for now, and I'm make it a project for later.

Thanks!

- David

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