I have in my hand a coil that says 12V on it and came out of a Escort RS232 turbo. All Fords after 1970 I read have Ballasted systems in them. So this is a Ballasted coil that has 12V written on it.
I decided to check out finally and the only way as to the power of my orange coil Ducellier.
I went onto 4 garages (here in France) and they have never heard of Ballasted!!!! and they didnt have an Ohm reader either!
I finally found an electrical shop and reluctantly the owner allowed me to test my coil on his resistance reader which was on the counter.
I tested the resisitance between the + and - terminal.
It read 1.8 Ohms
I read everywhere that a non-Ballasted coil should read 3 Ohms and Ballasted coil should read 1.5 Ohms.
I had to laugh to myself........i'm going Ballasted mad:eek:
I have fitted the Orange coil into the car anyway and tried to start her up.
No joy.
The fuel pump IS working fine.
As I turned the car over I saw fuel pumping into the filter and filling it up.
So its not the pump.
I will find someone to help with the next step.
I will check the spark at the spark plug end.
I will check the spark form the coil to the distributor the HT lead.
Then work my way back.
Unfortunatly i dont have a multiumeter so I cant check the current at source which I know would be the best way.
But I read somewhere that you can tell by the colour of the spark when testing.
Blue is good . Orange is not good.
After reading about Ballasted and non-Ballasted coils for the past two weeks I would like to pass to all, that for me, was one of the better articles explaining about Ballasted coils. And it has a nice (simple)diagram.
http://www.mgcars.org.uk/mgcc/midgetreg/Ballastedcoil.shtml