'70 Chrysler 85HP. I've been working on this for a while, and I recently noticed that though it has a nice hot spark when cold, it get's weaker and becomes intermittent when motor gets warm. It looks like most of the ignition system has been "rigged", as it has a car coil on it in place of the powerpack and a condenser on the side of the distributor.
Now, the symptoms here are that it idles fine, but starts missing when run up. It has no power past 1/4 throttle. I cleaned the points and set them, rebuilt carbs, rebuilt fuel pump and problem persists-now I believe it to be an ignition issue, possibly the coil. Some things I just can't figure out though. It seems to me that 25 years ago when I was dinking around with cars that had points ignitions, if I put the #1 piston (firing order is 1,2,3 and I believe the bottom cylinder is #1) at TDC, the rotor should be pointing at that electrode (the wire for plug #1) in the cap. Well......the cap on the distributor here has locations for 6 plug wires, only 3 are filled-every other one. When I put the #1 piston at TDC, the rotor points to the next tab over from the one in the cap that actually has the plug wire in it. The current ignition system has a single car coil going to the distributor. Should I move the distributor (loosen the timing belt and rotate rotor) so that the rotor lines up with plug #1 when it's at TDC? Also, there are no timing marks that I can find on the flywheel, so in theory, if I have #1 at TDC, align the rotor in the distributor with the wire for plug #1, and have the throttle all the way back, I should be able to engrave a mark on the flywheel across from the timing tab on the powerhead and call that 0 degrees? Sound reasonable? It has been YEARS since I've messed with this stuff so I may be all *(&% up!
Also, anybody have any recomendations on what would be an acceptable coil to replace this one with? The condensor too as I believe that is added on as well. My thoughts right now are that I'll take it to NAPA and see if they can sort it out, but my preference would be to find the original ignition system/power pack and put it back right.
Eric
Now, the symptoms here are that it idles fine, but starts missing when run up. It has no power past 1/4 throttle. I cleaned the points and set them, rebuilt carbs, rebuilt fuel pump and problem persists-now I believe it to be an ignition issue, possibly the coil. Some things I just can't figure out though. It seems to me that 25 years ago when I was dinking around with cars that had points ignitions, if I put the #1 piston (firing order is 1,2,3 and I believe the bottom cylinder is #1) at TDC, the rotor should be pointing at that electrode (the wire for plug #1) in the cap. Well......the cap on the distributor here has locations for 6 plug wires, only 3 are filled-every other one. When I put the #1 piston at TDC, the rotor points to the next tab over from the one in the cap that actually has the plug wire in it. The current ignition system has a single car coil going to the distributor. Should I move the distributor (loosen the timing belt and rotate rotor) so that the rotor lines up with plug #1 when it's at TDC? Also, there are no timing marks that I can find on the flywheel, so in theory, if I have #1 at TDC, align the rotor in the distributor with the wire for plug #1, and have the throttle all the way back, I should be able to engrave a mark on the flywheel across from the timing tab on the powerhead and call that 0 degrees? Sound reasonable? It has been YEARS since I've messed with this stuff so I may be all *(&% up!
Also, anybody have any recomendations on what would be an acceptable coil to replace this one with? The condensor too as I believe that is added on as well. My thoughts right now are that I'll take it to NAPA and see if they can sort it out, but my preference would be to find the original ignition system/power pack and put it back right.
Eric
