Crazy Coil Voltage and Engine Sputtering
Thread Starter
7th Gear
Joined: Sep 2012
Posts: 7
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Crazy Coil Voltage and Engine Sputtering
72 Corvette 350... Points dizzy all new points, condensor and new coil. Car starts up runs like a champ. After a while the car starts sputtering and then clears up. Brought her back to my garage and checked voltage (digitial multimeter) across the coil while running. The voltage was all over the place changing every nano second. It was changing so fast you could not read what was going on. I shut the car down and scrathed my head. Removed starter wire from + side of the coil and left the resistor wire hooked up. Started car and took another voltage reading across the coil. Meter was bouncing (slow) from 5 to 6 volts. I'm pretty sure that is what it sould be reading with the resistor wire hooked up. Left the starter wire unhooked and took her for a drive. No issues at all. Check voltage of starter wire while key in crank position. Voltage starts at 9 volts and climbs to 12 volts real slow, like 3 seconds. That cant be right? It should be instant 12 volts. Car starts fine without the 12 volt starter wire. Question..... is this ok? I'm going to do a continuity check on the starter wire because it's burried in a harness. Should I run a new starter wire to the coil? Resistor wire woks great and ohm's out correctly. Also, the starter solinoid internals migh be causing this?
Le Mans Master
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 5,775
Likes: 585
From: Texas
Sounds like you might have a bad connection. I'd check wiring for burns and clean all the contact points. As you suggested, the problem could be a bad solenoid as well.
Did you have this problem before you replaced the points and coil?
Did you have this problem before you replaced the points and coil?
Thread Starter
7th Gear
Joined: Sep 2012
Posts: 7
Likes: 0
It turns out it was the secondaries dripping fuel into the carb causing the engine sputter. Crazy because it acted like an ignition problem. The float level is out of wack and needs adjusting. I plan on doing that tonight.... Right now I'm just going to leave the starter wire running from the starter unhooked. I will get to that later...
Last edited by Razzman1963; Mar 1, 2013 at 12:17 PM.
