Coil and condenser testing

[Kube]

Originally Posted by ndnchf

A buddy of mine has had some intermittent reliability issues with his v8 '38 Ford. So today he brought his coil and a couple of condensers over to test. The coil tested great and the condensers good, although a new replacement condenser was above specification at .500mfd. I'm told the spec calls for .33 - .36mfd. Each condenser was run on the tester with the coil in the operating circuit. Both worked, but we could see the difference in the spark jump when the out of spec condenser was in the circuit.

Condensers and coils are heat sensitive. This tester has a function that pre-heats the coil. We used this and the coil still tested good. As I told him, the tester will identify a bad coil or condenser, but it cannot identify a good one with 100% certainty. Most of the condensers available today are of dubious quality and are often the cause of road side grief.

Does anyone make a high quality V8 condenser like the A&L condenser made for model As?

Hunt's Magnetos has a great condenser at 32mfd. It is not a direct replacement but is quite easy to adapt to your need. I have been using these for years with zero issue.