Ignition Questions

[Don C]

I am working on a 39 Ford Deluxe. The car basically won't start once warmed up so did some troubleshooting on the ignition. I read on this site that the voltage across the coil should be 3.5 to 4 volts and that seems to be based on a supply voltage of 6 volts so assume the ballast resistor is supposed to drop the supply voltage by about 2 volts. The car I am working on has an 8 volt battery. I am measuring only 2 volts at the coil with the points closed. I thought that the ballast resistor might be bad so I bought and installed a new one. I again measured the voltage at the coil and only 2 volts still. I measured the voltage drop across the resistor and it was 6 volts. Could I be pulling more current across the coil than designed? Any ideas?

Thanks