[Tom Wesenberg]

MCHinson brings up a good point about the thick insulating washer. Leaving it out won't neccessarily mean a short to ground, but the screw may bottom out before the condenser is tight to the buss bar. Then when someone tries to tighten it more the brass terminal in the condenser can turn and ruin the condenser.

I still can't believe someone being there in person can't fairly quickly find the problem.

OK, the rotor turns so we know the distributor cam screw is tight and the gears are good as well as the tangs on the distributor shafts. So everything mechanical with the dist. should be OK. Now we know for sure it must be an electrical fault. We also know the coil gets hot, and that's because the points aren't opening and closing the coil primary circuit.

1. If you put a volt meter or test light on the dist. primary terminal leading to the points, does it blink on and off as the points open and close? If not, then you may have a repro ignition switch with one terminal touching the gas tank, or a bad wire inside the armored cable, or the short wire between the upper and lower plates inside the dist. could be touching ground, or the points arm could be rubbing on the dist. cam. Do the easiest checks first; see if the points arm is rubbing on the cam. Only the rubbing block should touch the cam.

Someone checking this in person has immediate feedback and should be able to find the problem in a few minutes, but feedback to us should also solve it quickly.

Let us know what you find.