So my car randomly died while driving the other day, middle of a major intersection! lol i found it funny more than anything
So its getn fuel and air but no spark
So i replaced all the plugs even tho they were fine, and took the dizzy cap off and boom
the ignition coil thing on the top of the dizzy is toast
The round part that the rotor (idk much about distributors) touches or spins by is fried, like burnt in half and was melted basically

I am replacing it, if it starts is it all good? or did something happen that would happen again and burn another one? Or should am I safe with just puttin the new one on myself?

 

well check for shorts and if you dont find any repalce and go

 

I am old school (and old), I like to replace the coil and igniter as a pair, one WILL take out the other under certain conditions. I think I would replace the wires also, remember electricity takes the path of least resistance, and in the case of high resistance of a broken (internally) plug wire but not bad enough that the spark had to burn through the insulation, the spark may buildup to maybe 50K volts to jump the gap inside a burned (internally) plug wire, this could take out a coil. Any other short circuit will be before the coil and not burn up the coil but if the igniter passes too much amperage or maybe allows too much dwell time then there you go, lots of thery on this stuff so do some basic testing as mentioned and make an informed choice. Sometimes coils just have to go to coil heaven, it sounds like yours had to go through hell to get there.

EDIT: was the inside of the cap covered with brown rusty looking stuff, if so, change the entire distributor. Minced bearing material, this stuff conducts electricity straight to ground = short circuit.

 

the inside of the cap was not brown rusty stuff... it was white like ashes haha
Well i dont get paid till wednesday i will replace it then..
I got an ohm meter at my house from work
What should I check and how?
Thanks guys and girls

 

Just do a continuity check of the plug wires, Ohms check, write down all the reading then divide that reading by how many inches of plug wire you have, each inch should be about the same on all, a big difference may be a bad wire but an infinite reading will be bad for sure. EX: 500 ohms per inch would be fine. Your plug wire equals 7000 ohms, its seven inches long, each inch is 1000 ohms, the others are similar, they are all ok. It would have to be way over to be in question.

I think a short prior to the coil would not burnout the coil.?????

 

Checking all that tomorow
Thanks man
You know what... ill take pics as well to show you the explosion ha

 

I just saw a guy take a coil on plug out of a Skyline, realized that the connector was broken causing his misfire, pulled the wires out of the connector making sure not to mix up the two outer wires (same color), put the wires back on the coil with no connector, started the car and 60 seconds later fried the coil. You guessed it, the two wires got reversed right there in his hot little hands. I had to do a continuity test from the ignition module to a different coil so we could figure out which wire went where, there was only three and one was a gimmie, it was easy, got a used coil on plug and no more misfire, zip tied the wires down for now. Smoke filled up everywhere under the hood and the coil was seriously melted.

With that said, look at the wires on the ignitor, I dont think they can get mixed up and the two on the coil are different lengths so I dont think the shorter one will reach the further point.

 

[QUOTE=Duane_in_Japan]I am old school (and old), I like to replace the coil and igniter as a pair, one WILL take out the other under certain conditions. I think I would replace the wires also, remember electricity takes the path of least resistance, and in the case of high resistance of a broken (internally) plug wire but not bad enough that the spark had to burn through the insulation, the spark may buildup to maybe 50K volts to jump the gap inside a burned (internally) plug wire, this could take out a coil. Any other short circuit will be before the coil and not burn up the coil but if the igniter passes too much amperage or maybe allows too much dwell time then there you go, lots of thery on this stuff so do some basic testing as mentioned and make an informed choice. Sometimes coils just have to go to coil heaven, it sounds like yours had to go through hell to get there.

-How do i check the wires? what should the ohm meter show

 

It sounds like you need one of those $15 Haynes repair manuals my friend and a not too expensive multimeter, let me know when you have both.