Technical ignition condenser problems

What are some reasons an ignition condenser fails often?

 

Do you have a ballast resistor or a resistor wire in your system? Loose or corroded condenser mounting strap or wires. Could also be a poorly made condenser from China. What are your symptoms?

 

Most likely as stated above they are poorly made. Take a look at this article in the link below and you'll see just how crappy they are being manufactured these days....
http://www.nonlintec.com/sprite/cap_failure/

 

I do have a ballast resistor. It will start running real rough all of a sudden sometimes backfires and sometimes just dies. Then I put a new condenser on and it runs fine. A few weeks ago I had driven nearly a hundred miles no problems came back the next morning car wouldn't even start. New condenser, car starts and runs good again. Today starts up runs fine for a couple of miles and then starts running rough again I haven't put a new condenser on yet.

 

sounds like a coil breaking down.
Maybe the new condensers are acting as a bandaid

 

Quite possible graham, I have been plagued by condenser failures from off shore parts more than once. If the condenser is old but proven I never change it,and I keep a proven spare now as well.

 

You can mount it off the coil instead of inside the distributor, perhaps it is getting hot and failing like the model As did. Just have a good ground!

 

Old wax paper condensers wear out sitting on the shelf. If it is NOS and more than 20 years old it is on borrowed time.

 

Test them at 250+ volts (keep one hand in back pocket) if it passes, should be OK. Those old wax caps had paper dialectric, the auto condensers should be a little better made I think.

 

Check the polarity of your coil ( negative should go to your points in a neg. earth system). I know this can shorten the life of your points, may also cause capacitor failure.

 

Thanks for the tips. I know this sounds like a simple problem but it's driving me crazy. I did get new condenser that was bad right out of the box. This just started happening in the last couple of months so something has gone wrong somewhere.

 

I have a 61 283 with stock distributor, it has ate 3 condensers in a 1000 miles.

 

How do you do this?? I’d sure like to try this , would be a lot easier to replace also.

 

We had the same issue with the rebuilt engine in my 57.
I had 3 failures in a row....straight out of the box.

We rescued the old one from the trash and it has been there ever since.

They are poorly made, and of limited demand nowadays

 

I think recently there was a post about the new condensers .
Someone had several failures of the new ones,,,,so they opened one up .
It turned out the wire was not soldered inside like the old ones,,,,it was only crimped on .
So they were experiencing bad connectivity with the new ones internally.
Sounds about right to me .

Tommy

 

Maybe contact Jim Linder aka "Bubba" I believe he uses or used Napa (Echlin) brand on his distributor builds.

 

condensers, aka capacitors, are all about 21 micro farads,600 volt rating is best. Buy them online at electronics dealers. Usually better quality and can be mounted externally.

 

Many bad mouth them but after 3 condenser failures on my 56 Ford I installed a Pertronix ll following their instructions and coil. I also kept the stock Ballast resistor which is optional but after a call to one of their techs I decided to keep. That was 7 years ago.

Jim, aka Squirrel, here has given the part # for a capacitor that I believe fits in the distributor.

 

These have proven to be very reliable. They mount on the outside of the distributor.

 

For those needing a condenser, contact @tubman above.

 

Sounds very large for an ignition cap, my memory suggests something closer to 0,2 micro farad/200 nano farad. Too tired to research now unfortunately, 4AM just being awake to get the heat out before trying to sleep. Summer hit hard, at 36C in the shade in Sweden.

 

I am no electrics wizard, but I remember from an ignition seminar I attended once the speaker told of looking at the carbon build up on a used set of points. If the pile is all on one side and the other side is a burn hole you are using the wrong condenser. Ideally, the residue would be equal on each side. Hopefully someone here can expand on that

 

Yeah, the article linked to earlier in this thread says .20 - .22 microfarads. 600 volts.
Here you go:
Axial leads - https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Cornell-Dubilier-CDE/940C6P22K-F?qs=zsnhSutGCZWd1UevJM1khQ==
Radial leads - https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Cornell-Dubilier-CDE/715P22456MD3?qs=mKWJoQeCbqC0Cv58%2BZJ2pg==

 

NOTE: Those single strand leads are not going to like the vibration of the engine. The capacitor body will need to be securely fastened to something.

Russ

 

In '77, my gf says her gf has an old Ford she wants to sell, runs bad, smokes, bad mileage yadayada will you take a look at it (as she bats her eyes)? OK, have her bring it over. She shows up in a dead straight 63-1/2 Galaxie 500 fastback, pale yellow with perfect black interior, tinted glass, running terrible and dragging a blue cloud, 390 flags on the fenders. Hmmmm, engines I have.. Well, what do you want for it? She says can you give me $200, I want to buy a little Honda car. Well, OK. First pull plugs, rear on both sides fouled, so pull valve covers, and rear oil drainbacks completely plugged. So now it's running on 8 but still not well, and smoking has gone away. Off with the cap, point are pretty crispy, easy enough, but doesn't look right- there's no condenser- nothing there. Put some fresh points in, and curious, tried to start it- wouldn't start again without the condenser, even though it did with the old points. Put a condenser in it, popped to life and ran soooo sweet. Yeah, should have kept that one

 

The car or the gf?

 

I just moved my condenser out of distributor and on to firewall, will be lots easier to change. Went to Oreileys and bought a lifetime warranty condenser and a year warranty condenser.

 

Production tolerances of the components themselves. Lead length will also affect the capacitance. Not necessarily the "wrong" condenser. The capacitor and the coil secondary winding together make a "tuned circuit". The condenser is like a shock absorber for the coil output. Slightly "too much" or "too little" capacitance would tend to cause deposits to build on one side of the point face versus the other.

Back in the day when twice yearly regular tune-ups were the norm, a lot of mechanics would leave the condenser alone when replacing the points, if the point faces were wearing evenly. Condenser replacement was a bit of a crapshoot back then too. Not like now but a serviceable part like that, there was really no benefit to replacing it just for the heck of it.

 

And the environment is likely quite a bit cooler there the life of the condenser may improve quite a bit too.

 

IIRC , wasn't there a condenser mounted on the coil as well as inside the distributor on many different vehicles or was the can on the coil something else ?