Ok, wires not well marked when taken apart. I have no spark, + side of coil yellow wire from starter, what I believe to be rf disruptor and wire that supplies current when ignition is on. - side wire from distributor and ground to block. I have no spark and as a last resort held on to #1 plug wire to see if I had current and nothing. I need help. 1965 Buick Skylark.
Philip, The yellow wire comes up from the starter, and joins with the resistance wire from the foward engine harness. The resistance wire comes off the bulkhead connector, on the drivers side of the car. If you are connecting the yellow wire from the starter directly to the coil +, you'll only have voltage while cranking. The - side of the coil gets the single wire from the distributor. If you have a multimeter, or test light, look for voltage with the key on. Sounds like you are installing the engine, or distributor. Was the engine running before? Did you replace the points? Need a little more background info.
Larry, Points [gapped], condenser, and ciol all replaced, Engine rebuilt and starter solenoid replaced. Yes it ran before and thats why I am confused. Resistor wire with ignition on reads about 7 V, don't seem to be getting anything from Yellow wire from starter when cranking and since there are only 3 terminals on the solenoid I don't see how that could be wrong. The only thing I don't like is on solenoid it has: B terminal, S terminal and 8 terminal which is the terminal I hooked the Yellow wire to. Car has been apart for a while so that only adds to the problem. I am re-charging the Battery now and will check Voltage at wires again tomarrow. I also picked-up another condenser today just in case I had a dead short but checked and not the case. I have removed the RF suppressor from + side and the ground wire from - side, and now on + side just Yellow wire and resistor wire, and on - side just wire from distributor.
Phil, Key on, points closed, votage at the coil + should be 5.5-6 volts. There should be no ground at the negatve side of the coil. That alone will give no spark. The points provide the ground when they close. Points closed the coil primary gets 12 volts. Points open, the magnetic field around the coil primary windings collapses, inducing the high voltage in the coil secondary windings, that jump the sparkplug gap. With a ground on the coil negatve, the coil primary windings stay energized all the time, and you get no spark. Check each small terminal of the starter solenoid. One of them should provide battery voltage while cranking. 9 volts or more. If you don't have that, then you have a defective starter solenoid. Good luck.
Ok, checked the resistor wire when I got home had 7.3 V so I set the multimeter down grabbed the remote start and the #1 plug wire saw a spark and the engine started with plug wire in my hand. While being shocked I knocked the meter off the radiator support and it ate it and wrapped the neg cable around the fan, at that point I didn't care. Engine ran life was good. Thanks for your help, Battery must have just been run down. I will be leaving wires as you suggested and thanks again.
