'40 Century Ignition Mystery

[Rod Frazier]

Hi, guys:  Bit of a mystery here.  Did a tuneup on the car, including new plugs, wires, points, condensor, because I'd been having trouble with the car losing power climbing hills, acting like either fuel starvation or ignition failure.  Took it for a 10-mile drive and she ran great.  Next morning started for a drive and got about a mile and the car died and would not restart.  Rechecked my work and all looked good, so installed a new replacement coil I had.  Car fired right up and ran for about a mile and died again.  If I hold the coil wire next to a ground, I get no spark.  Same, of course, when I check a spark plug for spark....nada. I am getting full voltage to the coil. If I move the points together and apart by hand, there is juice. This car has the autostart and when I put the meter on the terminal leading to the vacuum switch and crank the engine, I get no on/off signals from the meter.  Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[Guest]

In the past I had a problem several times with new points.  The spring arm was mismade.  Sometimes it would short out against the distributor body.  I put a piece from a matchbook cover between the spring and the distributor body and never had the problem since.  Three new sets were this way.

[Rod Frazier]

40 minutes ago, Tinindian said:

In the past I had a problem several times with new points.  The spring arm was mismade.  Sometimes it would short out against the distributor body.  I put a piece from a matchbook cover between the spring and the distributor body and never had the problem since.  Three new sets were this way.

I'll take a look at that...thanks.