2lt Pinto Cooking Coils!!!!

[73escort]

Hi,

I own a 75' MK1 Escort Panel Van, it has been cooking coils and turning them to mush for a while. I'm not particuarly good with electrics and wondering if anyone can give me some ideas as to wherei should be looking for the sourse of the problem. I'm equipped with a shed full of tools and a multimeter so if you know of what the correct voltages should be at certain points i can check that out too to try and trace the problem. I've gone through about 5 coils in 9 months, and i barely use the car, its sat there for a while now cause i jus got sick of it doing it. Would really really apprecciate any help i can get as i'm too broke to take it to the Auto Elecs at the moment and would really like to get it running before spring kicks in too much cause i wanna go on some cruises etc.... any help greatly apprecciated.

[tufLTD]

Are you using either a ballast resistor or a resisted coil? If you're running 12V through the coil, that may be why you're burning them out. You need to drop the operating voltage down to approx 9 volts.

[73escort]

man that was a quick reply, cheers! its a bit late to go and crank it now, but i'll check it out tomorrow and post up the results, i have a feeling the resistor isn't connected, so that could certainly be the issue.

[T3man]

The coil is supposed to have 6 volts. They can live with 8. They die with 12 very quickly.

Either fit the ballast resistor back into the circuit or go buy a 12v coil.