Quote:
Originally Posted by Sid
Coils don't really care if they are 6 volt or 12 volt. On a 12 volt system the resistor cuts voltage nearly in half anyway. It's the ohm rating to be concerned with. 1.5 or thereabouts on primary side is what you want. To test the secondary side put your meter on 20K. Put one lead on the + post and the other lead in the coil tower. You want a reading of around 9,000 give or take 1,000 or so. 3.0 ohm on primary side is usually considered a 12 volt coil. Also is there any chance you purchased a bad condenser?
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Sid, this depends on the coil. Different coils have different internal ohm ratings. A lot of the older coils were basically the same (around 1.5 ohm internal resistance) and would work on 6v without a ballast resistor and on 12v with something around 1.5 ohm ballast resistor. BUT, there are 3.0 ohm coils and coils with much less than 1.5 ohms and about everything in between, so you really need to know which coil you are working with. Examples:
The Flame Thrower 40,000V coils have internal resistance rated at 1.5 or 3.0 ohms.
Flame Thrower II coils have lower resistance at 0.6 ohms.
Flame-Thrower III coils have extremely low resistance of 0.32 ohms.
These are just Flame Thrower examples, almost all coil manufactures provide coils with different internal resistance.
Note: The extremely low ohm coils are used with different types of electronic ignitions and not with a points distributor, but some look a lot like a normal coil. It is best to check them if there is any question.