Sal,
Good to hear from you.   Forgot to mention that I have tried three coils, actually.  Funny thing is, over the years I have tried to blame the coil on several issues I have confronted, and not once was the coil faulty. Unless someone can suggest otherwise, tomorrow I am going to locate a set of DIY wires with copper cores and make a coil wire.  If that one fritzes, I will take your advice (?) and follow that failure with a few brewskies.  If everything works, however, I will also follow with a few brewskies.  See any pattern there?
Better,
Al

Points ignition or electronic? Also are you sure you are making contact with the metal clips when testing the coil wire? There are 3 reasons why a coil wire wouldn't have continuity. 1 The terminals are not crimped over the center of the wire, having no connection between the clip and wire. 2 there is an internal break of the wire somewhere in the center, caused by pinching the wire at an extreme angle or just made badly. 3 Not getting good contact from your multimeter to the clips inside the wire.

Last edited by MachTJ (4/10/2016 7:59 AM)

Bob,
Thanks for the tips.  Before I head to the store, here is how I tested the coil wire.  I attached my inductive timing light to the coil wire and checked for any light flash while cranking the motor.  In my thinking, no timing light flash, no voltage passing through the wire.
Best,
Al

Mach,
   Good point.  I have used three coils at this point with identical results.  After testing the coil wires with the timing light, I checked continuity and the wires show none.  The coils are oem and don't produce any ultra high voltage.  The ignition side of the coil is receiving 12+ volts.  Calculated resistance is around 4 ohms.  Just cannot find anything extraordinary that would explain coil wire failure. At this juncture, I am thinking "Murphy" is having a good time developing some new material for another book.   He lives in my shop, you know.
Best,
Al

Al Newman wrote:

Bob,
Thanks for the tips. Before I head to the store, here is how I tested the coil wire. I attached my inductive timing light to the coil wire and checked for any light flash while cranking the motor. In my thinking, no timing light flash, no voltage passing through the wire.
Best,
Al

Timing light method works just as well.  As Mach TJ suggests, make sure your ground is good (although if the starter engages and cranks the engine, the ground it should be good), and the rotor is installed and turns when cranking the engine.  Make sure the wire going into the distributor isn't grounded where it enters the housing, or broken.
Are you using points or electronic ignition?  If electronic, what brand?

Last edited by BobE (4/10/2016 5:41 PM)

ignitor 1, 2 or 3?  Don't they use specific coils like Flamethrower I, 2, and 3 for each different ignitor type?  

I think you are missing something from the "I" terminal on the starter relay to the Coil positive.

the primary ignition circuit has 2 paths from the Ignition switch to the coil. One path for "cranking", and a 2nd path when the key is in the "run" position.   The "cranking" path is so that it gets a full 12 volts during cranking to make it easier to kick over. The "run" path inserts the resistance wire lowering it from 12 volts to a lower voltage so that the original points didn't get burned out and pitted. If you are not using points, then I would think the resistance wire needs to be eliminated, but this only comes into play when the car is running anyway.  Which leads me back to the "cranking" path.  I am not sure that your ignition switch is providing you with a "cranking" path to the coil.  The "cranking" path comes off the "I" terminal on the starter relay to the coil.

Al - I'm not familiar w/the Pertronix system, but you can try the following to bypass the distributor.  Put your timing light on the high voltage wire from the coil to distributor, disconnect the coil terminal wiring, put a +12v from the battery to the + terminal, and momentarily ground the negative side of the coil.  When you lift the negative lead (un-grounding it) you should get the high voltage from the coil to the distributor.  This process is basically what the points perform.  It this works, the problem is in the distributor.
Also, regarding the coil, primary resistance should be about 1 ohm, secondary should be about 5 to 10,000 ohms.  If your getting somewhere close to these values the coil is good.  Although there is a chance that there could be an internal problem while the coil is in active service, I would think this would be very rare.

I made a coil to distribiutor wire using real wire core wire and everything is okay.  Maybe just chalk this up to a one-off weird coil wire failure - twice.  Never had a coil failure.  Never had a coil wire failure.  Never had any issues with an ignitor.  Murphy wins again.  Thanks for everyone's input.  Time to pop a top.
Best,
Al

Hard to believe two bad coils ... If it not too much trouble, I'd like to ask you to check the resistance as I indicate in my last post and let us know the values.
BTW - just to be clear the secondary resistance should be somewhere between 5,000 & 10,000 ohms.