Forgive my ignorance but electrical was never my strong point. I have a 1965 Mercury Cyclone with a wiring harness that has been butchered by the PO. I am trying to troubleshoot the engine misfiring and have reason to belive the resistance wire in the harness may have been cut and spliced at some point. I have a ballast resistor from a sbc in my spare parts. Will I see any ill effects if I simply wire in the ballast resister after the resistor wire already in the harness? Getting to the resistor wire up under the dash is a pain so I thought that just wiring in a ballast resistor might give me a clue as to the condition of the resistor wire. Will it run acceptably with both wired in series? Thanks in advance for your help!
personally I don't believe that a bad ballast resistor or a resistor wire would cause a misfire anyway. All the ones I've ever worked on either worked or they didn't. You either got fire or nothing.
Go back to basics - measure the voltage of the stock resistor wire at the coil (or the resistance if you can get to both ends), if it even is one and see how much voltage drop there is - then go from there.
I agree with Tommy. Your problem is likely somewhere else. But to answer your original question........one or the other...not both. Try measuring battery voltage after the ignition switch on an accesory or other 12v powered item. Then measure voltage at what you believe to be the resisitor wire. If the resistor wire voltage is lower by 2.5 to 4 volts, it IS resisior wire and working as it should. If it's 12 volts, it is not the correct, or original wire, and you can put a ballast resistor in the coil circuit. Ray
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