87 subaru XT Ignition Problem....

Can anyone please help? I lent my XT to someone and had to drive 160 miles to pick it up. Ran for 2 years no problems - has 140K miles on it - now it seems like there is no spark coming from coil. Asked a mechanic and he said has never replaced a bad coil in 30 years. Tried new coil anyway and it heated up and just took it back to store - Doesn't matter anyway, no juice coming from negative terminal on coil when trying to start engine. Replaced cap, rotor, battery cable, a yellow wire that goes into the distributor to the negative side of coil and a black wire that goes to negative side of coil from a wire panel that has jumpers attached to side of antifreeze storage tank. The new coil was the wrong one and heated up so hot that I thought it was going to blow. Checked timing belts, rotor turns and I can smell gas when trying to start. What could it be? Don't have lots of $$ to pay someone to do major diagnostics. Before this, car has NEVER left me stranded. Please Help CHRIS kane@antisocial.com

I am no expert, but a coil that heats up when installed sounds like it might be a pointer to the problem.

 

This thing must have some kind of ignition amplifier or transistor in the circuit. If it is shorted out, it would put full current through the coil at all times, could make it heat up. Since it is shorted, and never opens, there would never be a spark come out of it.

 

It is worth looking at whatever fires the coil.

Your car has an optical sensing distributor for crank angle signal. It also has an ignition coil power transistor located on the bracket for the coil.

 

First guess would be the power transistor for the coil. Far second would be the distributor.

 

Use the search function located at the top of the page for more info. Not trying to be rude or short, going to watch a movie.

 

Jay