Dodgy coil?

[iain.hamlton]

Recently, my +2 wouldnt go. No spark. I traced the fault to the points, which had melted.... Strange, I thought. I replaced them, checked the wiring, and shrugged. Anyway, last night it wouldnt go again with no spark. I didn't have the patience to sort it out there and then, but I'll bet I'll find frizzed points again. I had left the ignition on for a while. My logic is that the coil's primary winding has low resistance (it is supposed to be a 12v one - not a 9v ballast resistor type, incidentally).

Has anyone seen this? I have never heard of it before.

thanks and best regards, iain

[alaric]

Hi. Sounds like it was running with the new points in place. Is it possible that the condensor / capacitor around the points has failed / come loose - but you would have replaced that with the points I guess. Sounds though from the 'melted' description that there's lots of current flowing rather than 'burnt away' points. Was it running ok with the new points - any misfires at all? I've had a coil fail, with the engine misfiring and stopping once the coil warmed up. That was hard to find, since the engine was fine for the first few minutes.

Sean.