No Spark

Put your test light across the two terminals in the electrical connector going to the ignition coil.

See if the test light flashes while cranking.

Robert, I agree that 8-10 volts is problematic. To be sure about testing for 12 volts into the coil: You ground the other leg of your DMM for this test.

If you bias the leads across the coil terminals (like you do to test for spark in my above test), your voltage reading will be off because the ground constantly comes and goes. Your DMM tries to average the readings and gives an invalid one. The 12 volt pathway is constant to the coil; the ground is modulated to excite the coil.


I'm not up on Optima batteries but I'd see if you can get a charge into it. Right now if you checked spark, it's probably orange. Anything less than blue will often not allow a car to start. Then things are misleading because while someone has a bench-test spark but once suscepted to fuel, oil and compression, that spark is blown out.



Good luck.

Hey im not sure if this helps but i had a magnetic pickup go out on my distributor, and couldnt get any spark. had to buy a 40 dollar pickup and it worked fine.