Ok everyone, if I could get some help with this it would be greatly appriciated. When my '78 1600 Brat wouldn't start after sitting for a month.. I consulted my bible (Larry Owens' How to Keep Your Subaru Alive) and I started to troubleshoot.. I have no spark to the plugs.. I DO have spark coming out of the coil, I did the coil test and got a weak orange spark to jump a 1/4" gap between the coil output wire and a ground. The book said that indicates a weak coil, so I replaced it, once with a used one, then a new one and I am still getting a orange spark when I do the coil test.. I have also tried a new alternator and battery and I still get the weak orange spark... Does anyone have any ideas how I can get my poor Brat started again? Thank you all!!

 

-Steve

Denver, Colorado

When that happened to me it was the distributor cap and rotor. Try popping the rotor off and seeing if the contacts are bad. If you want to try a different distributor I can point you to a yard that had a Gen1 Brat this past Saturday.

When that happened to me it was the distributor cap and rotor. Try popping the rotor off and seeing if the contacts are bad. If you want to try a different distributor I can point you to a yard that had a Gen1 Brat this past Saturday.

This would be all i'd say, too. In those brats it's ALWAYS connections somewheres, or clutch complications (at least w/ mine).

 

And if the J/Y doesn't work out, shoot me a pm and i'll give you the # of a used parts place in Boulder.

That happened to both my Brat and the '72 Jeep that's inside Tim's 1950 Ford F1... changed out the points and condenser... vroom... they both fired right up. Good luck!

Mary

Breaker is my guess.Lift that cap and check.Let us know please.

and later on if you want to get a 82 (I think) or newer ea-81 electronic disty they slide right in

Not sure about the 82's Jason but everything from '83 to newer on the EA81 had a electronic disty and it bolts right in. If you need to know how, PM me and I can tell you. I did this swap on my '78 Brat and my '79 wagon and they ran better then with new points!