1983 Baretta Merc 140 - no fire.

[MindEddy]

Make my engine go poppity pop and win a prize!

I hooked a battery to this old boat and the radio came on...playing a cool old rock-n-roll song. I thought it was a Christine moment so left the warehouse, hoping she'd rebuild herself while I was gone. Didn't work. I came back and small roaches were still doing the circle jerk on the soft, squishy floor. The boat still looked like it sat in a field 5 years.

We put a new coil on this 140 and are seeing good power to the posts, but no matter what are not getting a spark at the plugs, or even at the end of the coil wire. What would be stopping the coil from firing on through??

Any advice appreciated.

ME

[I put this in the Baretta forum in error also]

 

[Don S]

Re: 1983 Baretta Merc 140 - no fire.

Put in new points and condenser, be sure to set dwell. then timing.

 

[MindEddy]

Re: 1983 Baretta Merc 140 - no fire.

Don, thanks for quick reply.

You might be right. I was reading [and reading] on the different forums here and also found some interesting [youtube] videos on 'how' a coil works. Seems if the points aren't working correctly, it won't tell the coil to actually fire.

There is a 'coil testing' method I plan to try today. ** Unhook all wires, battery power to + side, then short - to ground off/on to see if coil fires by places center wire end next to ground. Hopefully, this is a good test to eliminate the coil as the issue.

Wish me luck...

 

[Don S]

Re: 1983 Baretta Merc 140 - no fire.

There is a 'coil testing' method I plan to try today

You already replaced the coil, and you still have the problem. Newbies to points ignition systems always replace the coil first. Thousands upon thousands of perfectly good coils have been replaced due to no spark.
A simple test is to take some fine wet/dry sand paper, fold it over, and sand the contact points a bit to get past the glazed surface. Then check for spark. The points will still need replaced, but you will verify they were bad

 

[Bondo]

Re: 1983 Baretta Merc 140 - no fire.

You already replaced the coil, and you still have the problem. Newbies to points ignition systems always replace the coil first. Thousands upon thousands of perfectly good coils have been replaced due to no spark.

Ayuh,... Amen to That...

Coils, 'n remote solenoids are thrown away by the millions, for absolutely No good reason at All...