Hi all, I am having trouble making some vintage mallory coils work on my 51 Plymouth flathead 6 cylinder , which is stock 6 volt positive ground. I have several of these coils and thought they looked period correct. See pics. However as soon as I turn key on I see minor smoke and the little spring wire that attaches from + on the coil to the third unmarked terminal gets hot warm. I don't have experience w these coils specifically but resistance measurements I took seemed reasonable as follows: 1. Approx 1 ohm across primary. 2. Approx 9k OHMS from primary to the secondary FYI prior to noticing smoke I sparked the secondary to ground noting spark....but not blue spark. It jumped approx 1/4" . So my questions are as follows A. Have I wired it up correctly for positive ground? B. What is the purpose of the spiral wire that wraps around porcelain from + to the unmarked terminal. If the spiral wire has been shortened/ broken, what must be done for it to work properly ? Any fixes for spiral wire? I see each of the three spiral wires I have onfor these 3 coils are slightly diff from each other. C. Are there any other tests I can perform to validate these are good or bad coils. I have spent a pretty penny on these and hope I can atleast make one work.....though the OHMS measurements were consistent across the board for all the coils........ D. Anybody got a copy of the original instructions for these types of coils. And for positive ground application. E. I just had my original radio rebuilt and installed it in my car. Works great but I want to add condenser to coil . Just not sure how to do so. Any idea.? All wiring is good in car. Wiring to coil sb good as follows. Points are wired to "-" on coil. "+" on coil is wired to horn relay. Thank you for any assistance. Mike
Hi , I have taken pics and will have to separately add pics to this post. Never have added pics before so it may take more than a couple minutes. Mike
I can't be much help as far as correct wiring but the coiled wire in the ceramic ring on top of those coils may be a resistor and will get hot when powered up. May be just burning off impurities from handling?
Hi Thx for your thoughts. Good point. Hopfully this is the case. Can anybody confirm this. ? Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
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