Apologies are in order, guys. I also have a rusty 30-31 coil with a huge dent that I tried this morning, and it actually worked! Never tried that one before because it loked so bad. So I thought, this nice looking Ford script coil should work as well. Turns out that it had a lot of crud in the high voltage terminal cap that goes to the distributor cap, so I cleaned it as well as I could with screwdrivers and drill bits, plugged the coil wire back in, and tried it again. Nice spark! Started the engine and it runs OK. So now I feel pretty foolish about running for advice before doing the basic home work. False alarm.
I also researched some old theads on the same subject where Tom sez old coils usually work, now matter how bad they look. I can verify that Tom is right. All of my old rusty dented coils will run an engine as is.
