starting from scratch

[66tbird@21]

Hey everyone!
My name is Alex. I recently bought a 66 tbird hardtop landau (I think its a landau bc has the emblems on the side of the hardtop). The car sat for about 3 years so I could have charged the old battery but I figured a new battery will be needed soon so I swapped it. Now I'm up to the engine coil. The previous coil has markings for the wires as distributor and battery. My new coil (blue streak) has markings of positive and negative. I'm a young guy, wasn't around for single coils for a 8 cylinder or carburetors and all that jazz, but new cars are too much electrical and not enough mechanical so I took this tbird as a project for myself. I just want to make sure its getting spark before I rebuild the carb. So I wanted to confirm if the positive is supposed to be attached to the wire that goes to the distributor and the negative should go to the wire that goes to the driver side wheel well wall.
Thanks again,
Alex

[jopizz]

Alex,

It's just the opposite, the negative goes to the distributor and the positive to the power or ignition wire.

John

[66tbird@21]

Wow tht would be pretty bad ha. Ok so I popped in the new coil. Thnx for the quick response!

[simplyconnected]

There are countless numbers of cars that have their coil connected backwards. They still work, just not as well; the spark is a bit weaker. - Dave

[66tbird@21]

That's relieving. I'm gna check to see if there's spark coming out of the coil today sometime. Will post updates. Thanks again.
Alex

[simplyconnected]

By all means, make the connections right. Your points ground the coil every time they close. That's how I remember, the distributor wire goes on the coil's neg post. - Dave

[66tbird@21]

So I got spark out of the ignition coil but it was a little weak. I connected a voltometer and got a range of volts from 12 to 79. Is that ok? I connected the wire to the cap and left one of the slots in the cap with no wire to see if spark would come... Which is didn't. Is there a problem with the rotor in the distributor?

[simplyconnected]

Did you fix the wires on your coil?

Leave all the high voltage wires attached to the distributor. Pull a plug wire from a spark plug. Stick a 'spare' or an old plug in that wire and lay it on the intake manifold or somewhere on metal where you can easily see it.

Crank the engine and watch the spark. It should be a pretty blue, not orange in color. Sometimes this should be done at dusk so you can see it better.

I have no idea where you were measuring your voltage. You must be a lot more specific; was the black meter lead on ground? Where did you measure the positive side from?

Do not crank the engine with spark plug wires missing from the distributor. If you still have problems, let us know. - Dave

[66tbird@21]

I connected the coil wires as u said to, neg-distributor and positive-ignition (that's on the wheel well). I tested the voltage by connecting it to the wire on the open end (should be connected to the distributor) and cranked it. Ok should be able to do the test tom. Just to know what's going on, if the plug would have spark, then the ignition system is good. If not... ?

[simplyconnected]

The coil has TWO positive wires. The blue/white wire comes from the ballast resistor. I think the '66 uses the "I" terminal on the Starter Solenoid (on the fender apron). Make sure both of these positive wires are connected before starting.

[66tbird@21]

Sorry for the late response, I had a unscheduled meeting in a different state. I checked it out yesterday and I'm not getting spark from the ignition coil. I checked both wires. The wire to the distributor has power. The other wire does not. It goes to what I think is the ignition relay and the green wires have no power. But the ground and the positive wire do. Should I check the relay?

[jopizz]

You should have voltage on the + terminal of the coil with the key on. You won't have 12v because the wire from the ignition switch has a resistance wire that lowers the voltage. You only have 12v when the engine is being started. The wire from the + side of the coil goes to the starter relay on the firewall. It should be brown. It then connects to a red/green wire that goes to the ignition switch. If you don't have voltage at either the + side of the coil or at the starter relay then you have to trace the wire back to the ignition switch. It could be a bad switch, bad resistance wire or a break or bad connection where it goes through the firewall. I would check for voltage on the wire with it off the coil to make sure the coil isn't grounding it out.

John

[66tbird@21]

You mentioned it could be a bad switch. Its raining now so I didn't check anything but I noticed when I tried to see if there was a spark, that when I turned the key back, the motor was still cranking, until I took the key out. Probably a bad switch. Would that affect the spark?

[jopizz]

Yes, a bad switch could give you no spark. Everything starts at the ignition switch.

John

[66tbird@21]

Anything I should b careful about when changing the switch?