Wet fingers. Hold end of wire very tightly. Have your wife (or other helper) spin the magneto real fast with a drill. You will soon know it is working or not
Heck....you can do it unassisted. Just take the groundwire retaining knob off and hold the mag with your hand up against the stud. Then rotate the bottom drive shaft.
A similar process can be adapted to test the output of a coil, charged capacitor or a generator. Its always wise to be leary of your auto electrician friend who makes the statement, "If you hold this wire right here I'll show you how it works..."
So how do you tell if it's timed correctly? What part do we clamp the inductive lead from the timing light on? Or do I not want to know? -bill
I'd just bring it to a swap meet and put it out with an unreasonable price, someone will pick it up and find out if it works. Hopefully he doesn't have a pacemaker.
My buddy bought a vertex at a swapmeet last year. He was sitting on his tailgate and decided to test the mag against the side of the truck bed. Ouch! He got stung on the back of his leg...
I got zapped a few times with my Vertex. Things hurt! The first time was when dad told me to hold "that" while he was "adjusting" it......damn old man was laughing till he fell down. hahahaha
I love the "take it to a swap meet" one. That is good, very good and also very true. And to think,,,you would many testers for free.