I hadn't driven my '69 in a couple months. The summertime in Phoenix is not the best time to cruise in a non-AC car.

But now the weather is cooling off, so I made sure the battery was charged up yesterday, and I took it out for spin this evening.

It started right up without issue. I got about a mile away from my home and was turning left onto a main thoroughfare when it just died. No warning.

I was stuck in the left turn lane on top of a busy freeway overpass. The car had at least a quarter tank of gas. I removed the air cleaner lid and manually worked the throttle and could see the gas squirting.

A gentleman stopped to give me a hand and we removed the coil wire from the distributor, then he held it near the wiper motor while I cranked the starter to see if we were getting any spark. No spark. I made sure the coil wire was well seated in the coil, then tried it again. Still no spark.

I resigned myself to the fact that I was stuck, and I called AAA for a tow.

After a couple minutes, I decided to try to start it again, and it did. I jumped in and got it off the freeway overpass and used secondary roads to get back home.

When I got it home, I wanted to see if maybe we hadn't been using a good ground to check for spark, so I pulled the coil wire and held it to the same spot on the wiper motor cover and it threw nice fat sparks that would be hard to miss in any lighting conditions.

So, my question is, when a coil goes bad, does it just stop working and is dead from then on, or can it be erratic? I haven't had a car with a coil for some time, and this episode makes me want to swap in an HEI distributor. My only other thought is that the wires/circuit supplying power to the coil is compromised in some way?

What do you all think?

 

 

Unless you are driving a diesel they all have a coil or coils. Are you still running points? Thats where I would start my search.

 

 

A bad coil will show up when it gets hot, once cool it will work again. Testing yours is an effort in futility unless it's hot to the touch. Accell super coils have a nasty habit of doing what you describe. Buy a new coil and be done with it.

 

ntfday said "A bad coil will show up when it gets hot, once cool it will work again". I have had this happen on another car. Fortunately coils are not that expensive, so replacing is an easy fix.

 

That's how my coil would fail. Funny part was that as soon as I opened the hood it would seem to cool off enough and the car would start. I was lucky to find it by having a timing light flashing while I spaced at the end of a long day in the dark..... when I noticed an intermittent skip in the flashing light.
Buy a spare coil and go for a drive. If it gets hot and dies swap it out.

 

Problem is likely to be a bad condenser, if you still have the stock points ignition setup. If you have installed an electronic ignition module...like a Pertronix...that is most likely your problem. Electronic modules do not like heat. With time, those modules can become heat-sensitive before complete failure. Bad condenser or bad module is my assessment

 

A condenser is nothing more than an electrolytic capacitor and will open, not short. Once open it's dead so if he's still running points he has a bad coil.

 

 

what brand coil do you have now

 

No idea. But it's stock looking...black cylindrical.

I'll replace it this weekend when I get back into town and see if that fixes it.