Dwell and point resistance question chevy

OK, time to make an ass outta myself...
she started chugging a little last night and time to fix her before the 100 pile up
first time working with points. slapped the dwell meter on her and shes at 36-37, it's supposed to be 38-45 idealy 41.
how do i adjust it , i can't figure it out, and no books here to help. Second on the shinney sun meter there is also points resistance setting, first q, how do you hook it up properly, + to the neg on coil and then ground the -? if that's the right way, it pegs the needle on the "bad" end of the scale, what is needed to fix the problem?
It's on a 54 chevy belair 235 and the powerslide all stock.
I know this maybe the basics, but i'm in the learning stage of points dis.
thanks for any input.

Jeff

 

first: I think youre prolly close enough.

adjust your points to read 41 on the dwell meter if you must.

second: is there a "good" end of the scale?

if there is try for that!

Paul

 

Yes there is a good end, but it pegs the bad end.

Highway13 quote...just gave me a good idea, time to drop it in the player...

 

I want to hear the right answer to this one too.

my usual way to fix this is to replace points, condenser, wires and plugs.

Paul

 

You need to adjust your point gap until you get the dwell angle you're looking for. It's trial and error. Take the cap off, reset the gap, put it back together, hook up your meter and turn the engine over. Repeat until dwell is where you want it.

The points resistance setting doesn't really make too much sense to me. It seems like the only thing it would tell you is if you have a bad condensor.

You have your meter hooked up with the positive lead on the wire going from the coil to the points and the negative lead going to a ground, right?

Good luck, man. I've had plenty of fun setting up my '54 ignition, so if you need any help, feel free to ask.

 

ok another stupid question, do you check dwell with the motor hot, or cold, it's hot now and hitting at 40, which is good for me.

 

Shouldn't matter. If it's changing and the points are tightened down, your distributor might be worn. In theory, the dwell angle should stay the same through the RPM range and whether the engine is hot or cold. It's mechanical, so heat shouldn't really effect it (as far as I know).

The only stupid question is the one you don't ask...

 

well she's running good tonight, seems like when i rev her up she wants to miss. stupid flame throwers, make me rev it and start to miss. plenty of time to play tomorrow.
any more idea welcome

 

Hey, silly question, but are you still running 6 volts?

I'm just thinking that with the extra output to the flamethrowers you may not have enough juice to fire all the plugs. I read your other post about the flamethrowers not firing - maybe the two problems are related...

 

nah, she's 12 running a 4 cyl HEI to fire all 4 plugs. running lawn mower plugs because they have the longest threads and they are gapped to .080 for a little extra spark

 

When adjusting dwell increasing point gap will decrease dwell angle and vice versa. If you follow this at least you can adjust in the right direction. also adjust to the lower end of the spec for dwell. As the points wear gap decreases,dwell increases, you will stay in spec longer.Point resistance depends how your meter is set up, I've seen some that test resistance with the engine running, others with engine off, points closed. High resistance usually means worn points.

 

Dwell angle is the number of degrees that the points are closed. The maximum dwell angle on a 6 lobe distributor is 60 degrees. On an 8 lobe distributor it’s 45 degrees. Anything more than that and your points won’t open.

The longer the dwell angle, the longer the coil saturation time which equates to a bigger spark.

Since the points must open wide enough to break the electrical connection you can’t take advantage of the full dwell angle. Usually, in a V-8 the dwell is set for 28-32 degrees. When you start getting up near the high end of the dwell limits (tight point gap), the engine becomes hard to start because you’re not breaking the electrical connection reliably. If you go with the low setting (wide gap) you cut down on your coil saturation time.

If you’ve converted a Kettering ignition system from 6 to 12 volts and you didn’t add a ballast resistor to the feed wire to the coil, you’ll start to experience premature point failure and poor idle when the coil warms up.

If you have a mid-range flutter, you might have a faulty condenser.

 

I hope that desoto's post does not fall on deaf ears (eyes?), it's one of the better descriptions of how a point ignition system works. I could go into flux density in more technical terms but everyone should understand that when the points close, current flows through the coil which builds up flux density (saturation). Remember the bar magnet and the iron filings you played with in school? As soon as the points open this field collapses which induces a very high voltage through the coil, that's why the coil is in the system, to boost the spark. Another point (no pun intended) is the condenser...if your condenser is bad then your points will arc and the field within the coil will never collapse and you will never get the high voltage pulse out of the coil. In other words, the plug will not fire properly if at all. Many people work on cars all their lives and never fully understand these principles....