Mallory Unilite is smoking

[HHStang]

I have this wired with ballast resistor EXACTLY to Mallory's directions. When I hook up battery, I see smoke coming out of distributor at coil wire. Voltages are weird too. Without Mallory harness hooked to coil, 12v, hook harness, 2v. Very weird. Any ideas?

 

[2nd Mustang]

Smoke and 2 volts most likely equals a grounded power lead somewhere, maybe even a bad unit. Hope you can cure it before hooking it up again as fire is the next reaction.

 

[mustangman1974]

soemwhere the harness is grounded. It could actually be grounded in the harnes. take a probe and see that you only have 1 wire in the harnes thats grounded. all other when the switch is off should be nothing. When the switch is on one should get 9-12 volts and the other is goofie (triggerwire). This one depends if the eye is triggering or saturating.

 

[HHStang]

Thanks for the tips. I also looked up how to test the unit at the Mallory site and will do that this am. They also show 2 diagrams on how to wire it believe it or not. One shows red going to the coil, the other shows red going to the resistor. Not sure it matters, but we'll see....

 

[mustangman1974]

yeah look closely the red goes to the positive side of the coil while the green goes to the negative.

 

[HHStang]

Got it. I'm calling Mallory today. I'm guessing Unilite is fried.

 

[mustangman1974]

spend the extra 40 bucks and get the filter. Trust me it will save your unilite. I have on on my comp 9000 with MBI and laft unit is going on 2 years with no issue. Even with 2 alternators and 1 battery gone bad.

 

[HHStang]

Follow up. Problem (s) have been cured. The ballast resistor had a crack and ignition starter wire had a short. Fixed and running great now. Thanks all.