My 1969 L46 was driven with the coil wires reversed for about 200 miles. Not on purpose. Corrected the problem but the dwell meter won't operate properly. Have to connect the positive lead to the - side of coil to to get a reading. Will reversing coil polarity for 200 miles cause some componet to go bad?

John

 

No, Wont hurt a thing.

 

It's hard on the points. But every thing else should be OK

 

Assuming it's the two wire type, one lead goes on an earth and the other always goes on the distributor side of the coil.

What do you by it wont operate properly.

 

It shouldn't be an issue. The ballast resistance was still in the circuit, so the dwell current was the same, so nothing should have gotten hot. The only significant difference is that coil/plug gap polarity was reversed. Other than potentially taking a few more kV to jump the plug gap, it's no big deal.
Regarding the dwell meter lead issue, the red lead goes to the C- terminal of the coil. That's the signal point that the meter uses to read the dwell time/angle.

 

That's the correct way to hook up a dwell meter. The positive lead goes to the "-" side of the coil (which is the positive side of the points), and the negative lead goes to ground.

Lars

 

How could I be so blind. This is what happened. In the spring of 2009, I had the engine pulled, disassembled, cleaned and checked out, new oil pump, valve job, etc There were several problems here and there but were corrected by the owner. One thing that bothered me was a lack of power. Just didn't have the pull it had before. I checked the dwell and timing as I have always done for years. Pulled off the top shield, clipped the dwell meter red lead to the coil post facing the carb and the black one facing the firewall. Well, the dwell was set at 30 and I set timing up to 12 btdc from 6. The car still ran crappy. Having the carb rebuilt didn't help. After 200 to 300 miles, giving the car slight gas at 60 and it would misfire. Now I'm thinking plugs. Called the vette shop up and he agreed to replace them if that was the problem but I put the car away in September and decided to wait till next spring.

Having this problem really bothered me. November comes along and I read this article from a magazine printed in 1965. It talks about what happens if the coil wires are reversed. The engine will idle fine but at higher speeds it will misfire and performance deteriorates due to poor spark. I thought about it but said to myself, that can’t be. Two weeks later I wanted to start the car and popped the hood just to be sure. Yes, the wires were indeed reversed. I swapped them. I put the red ignition lead on coil + and the distributor black lead on coil -. The car ran remarkably better. Like night and day.
I had one lead that I wasn't sure of, the black lead from the condenser strapped to the coil. Lars answered my question by saying the + side.

When I connected my dwell the other day, I attached it the same way as before. Pulled of the top shield, clipped the dwell meter red lead to the coil post facing the carb and the black one facing the firewall. The meter wouldn’t work. That’s when I posted my post. I thought, with the wires being reversed, something messed up in my ignition system. I just assumed the red lead from the dwell should have gone to the carb side of the coil as I always have done. When they reinstalled the coil, they put it in 180 degrees from the way it was and that messed me up. When a few of you said it attaches to the minus side of the coil, I made the switch. The meter does work now. Tonight I’m shooting for total timing in by 2800 RPM. Got new distributor springs and Lars procedure. Will make a new post if it doesn’t work out.