Re: Coils

[Brad Sheridan <brads@mindspring.com>]

At 11:50 PM 12/4/99 -0400, you wrote:
>The coil is the device that sends the huge voltage charge to the
>spark plugs, it's a voltage multiplier using lots and lots of wire
>windings to accomplish this I believe.

  Not quite how it works for our cars, but close enough :)

>The coil is vital for running and starting the car.  Your tach is
>probably having wiring difficulties, maybe behind the cluster
>or enroute to the coil somewhere.

  Or possibly at the coil itself. If the coil is not firing, the tach may
not work. The tach picks its signal up off of the negative(signal) side of
the coil, and is looking for a high voltage spike that occurs when the coil
fires. So if either the 12V to the coil, or the signal wire from the
ignitor is missing or damaged, you might not get a spark, or a tach signal.
If the coil is physically damaged from being knocked around, that same
damage may have knocked the wiring at the coil loose. I'd check that first.
Then I'd test the coil, as Brett suggests.

Brad


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