thanks; doing it the simple way for the moment... all other parts of the ignition system are functioning but possibly no spark at the plugs, so Daniel is replacing the coil...

"God Bless Texas"location: Houston,TX

A coil tester is a load tester that enables you to power the coil and adjust the gap the spark has to jump.You can run the coil as long as you need to under load so that you can tell if its failing when hot.You can use a multimeter to test primary and secondary resistance but IME it is not a very reliable method.

right, got that...
just wondering if there was something besides a multimeter out there...

"God Bless Texas"location: Houston,TX

A lot of shop manuals describe procedures to test using a multimeter.



Lawrenceville, GA

thanks!
what's a coil tester by the way?

"God Bless Texas"location: Houston,TX

I assume you dont have a coil tester? If not run a test lead from the + side of the battery to the + side of the coil.Using a known good coil wire spin the engine over with the coil wire end about 1\4" from the block.If you get a nice,blue-white spark the coil is good.If no spark or a weak yellow spark coil is bad.Takes longer to explain than to do.If the coil is failing when hot run the engine until it gets sick or quits and do the same test.If it sparks with the coil cold but not when its hot the coil is going open when it warms up and is bad.Be aware that an old,tired set of resistor plug wires will often act just like a bad or weak coil.

what test(s) can be performed to determine if my coil is bad?
thanks,Mark

"God Bless Texas"location: Houston,TX