Car broke down....half mile away

[kawahonda]

Not sure?

[kawahonda]

Doesn't look solid

[Chryco Psycho]

Looks like factory carbon core , should be 7-21,000 ohms typically

[kawahonda]

Coil testing:

Primary Resistance: 1.4 Ohms

Secondary Resistance: 8,940 Ohms

So yes, apparently my multi-meter works, and my wires really do test out at 1,250 ish resistance, which is low....

[Chryco Psycho]

that is low if you are on the right scale to test . low is not going to be a problem

[kawahonda]

Tested my Ballast resistor at .5 Ohms. That is out of spec.

Can I just bypass it via a paper clip to see if it runs for a short time?

[MoparLeo]

Jut to clarify something. Advanced timing does NOT mean after the cylinder reaches tdc,advanced is before TDC and the faster the ngine rotates the more advanced the spark needs to be. The fuel charge burns at a constant rate. That means the charge has to be ignited sooner as the engine speed increases. Chryco said before that you need 3 things, air, fuel, spark. Also need correct timing of the fuel, spark. Air is needed for the fuel to combust.  Why are you even fooling with a point ignition ?? Stone age.

[kawahonda]

Jut to clarify something. Advanced timing does NOT mean after the cylinder reaches tdc,advanced is before TDC and the faster the ngine rotates the more advanced the spark needs to be.

That's what I said.

[kawahonda]

Very possible. Hold the coil wire about an inch away from a ground and have someone crank it. Should get a healthy spark. If you do then it's not ignition

Here is what I see.

https://youtu.be/Dym9YS6qlDI

You can hear the spark because the phone is 2 inches away. You cannot hear the spark from a normal viewing distance.

I'm curious what would the signs of a faulty points condenser be? I do have a NOS Accel Set that I can break open that are of great quality. The NAPA reman probably uses some low-medium grade points. They have however proved to be very stable (surprisingly) at idle and even at 3500 RPM. But if the condenser is crapping out, would it hold a stead cranking dwell, or would it fluctuate/drop out? If a steady cranking dwell rules out points and condenser, then I will simply forget about that.

I will say that when I bought the distributor and looked inside of it, there was WAY too much blue grease. I mean WAY to much. I wiped out the vast majority of it. I also made sure recently to wipe around the point (and put a business card in-between the contacts) to make sure it was clean. Could there be grease that I didn't get to in the distributor that is shorting something out? The only thing electrical in there is the point/condenser. It's also likely dialectric grease, so I really doubt it's shorting anything out if I happened to miss areas I couldn't see.

[MoparLeo]

EDIT * I stand corrected..
16° initial advance, vacuum advance disconnected and the vacuum source plugged on a stock, (high) mileage 340 without the engine being in top tune( New, properly gapped spark plugs, new cap, rotor, wires, properly adjusted carburetor , good compression. Would be a little too high for standard performance.  Your picture showing the rotor on the reman distributor shows a lot of carbon on the rotor's top. What does the inside of the cap look like ? A cracked cap, carbon tracking will cause erratic misfires.[/font]
http://www.tpocr.com/dodge2.html

[kawahonda]

You can see the intermittent spark clearly

https://youtu.be/sC7fXdCq3rc

[kawahonda]

I guess that I misunderstood your post to say that the rotor should be past the distributor post. Is that what you said ? That would be that the spark is happening after the rotor has passed TDC. That is not advanced, That is retarded. The spark needs to happen just Before the rotor is pointing at the post on the cap.  Advanced, before.  Retarded, after.
16° initial advance, vacuum advance disconnected and the vacuum source plugged on a stock, (high) mileage 340 without the engine being in top tune( New, properly gapped spark plugs, new cap, rotor, wires, properly adjusted carburetor , good compression. Would be a little too high for standard performance.  Your picture showing the rotor on the reman distributor shows a lot of carbon on the rotor's top. What does the inside of the cap look like ? A cracked cap, carbon tracking will cause erratic misfires.
http://www.tpocr.com/dodge2.html

I agree, there is some carbon build-up on the top of the rotor. Perhaps it's not the correct rotor. I'll get another one. Cap is fine, less than 1,000 miles old.

You need to think-through what I said again. With advanced timing, the rotor will be PAST the #1 post when #1 is at TDC. Think about it and look at my picture again. If I were to "unwind" (rotate crank counter-clockwise) to where the rotor is smack dab in the middle of #1 post (a spark fire), then that would mean that the spark is happening before #1 TDC. That is the definition of advanced timing.

My 340 is not a tired dog 340. Perhaps you haven't followed my threads. I appreciate the thinking/advice, but you are assuming lots of things in your posts and it's coming across condescending, especially from someone who did a great job on my door hinges....

[Chryco Psycho]

Tested my Ballast resistor at .5 Ohms. That is out of spec.

Can I just bypass it via a paper clip to see if it runs for a short time?

Sure hard on the coil over the long run but for 1 hr no big deal , you might be changing it anyway !

[Chryco Psycho]

You have it right , Leo is wrong , the rotor is past the terminal because your damper is at zero , so by tdc the spark event is over / past the terminal on the cap .
a bad condenser can short to ground killing the spark so yes a bad condenser can create the problem you are seeing .
It will run without the condenser connected it is ust that the points will not last lon as a spark can jump the points everytime they open

[kawahonda]

I'll restart tomorrow.

I did found what I consider a pretty big error on the reman distributor. I noticed that one of the housing screws (that connect to the timing plate) was loose. Tried to tighten it, and turns out it was stripped. 

Retapped it with a metric allen screw (so what, what I had on hand), and got her nice and tight. Reinstalled. Tried to start it, but I was giving it too much gas and now need to wait. I'm always a little gas happy.

Tomorrow's plan:

1) Attempt to start car again.

2) Bypass balast for a start up. See if cures.

3) Perhaps consider installing Accel Point/Condenser.

After that, it's just time to wait for parts.