oh ya, mine was totaly intermittant, im using the bad one on a car that i just drive around (very localy) for parts. hasnt done it in a couple weeks of short trips, but i know it will screw ;me again sometime

I'm not sure how you made the car start by grounding the minus side of the coil. You may get the coil to fire one time by doing that but that would be it. The purpose of the pickup loop is to intermittently open the ground connection of the minus side of the coil as the magnetic action of the reluctor goes past the pickup. This type of thing is what points did in the older car systems, just a little differently. They made a intermittent contact to ground. When the timing lobes would open the connection to ground then the charged field in the coil would collapse and make a spark.

 

When placing a test light probe probe on the minus side of the coil and to ground you are watching the action of the pickup loop. Most of the cycle, the minus side is at ground potential. When the circuit opens up for the firing of each cylinder then the voltage through the coil goes high because the ground connection has been removed and lights the light up.

 

I think your next step is to replace the pickup loop as it appears to be intermittent. Temperature can be an issue with this type of setup.

I think your next step is to replace the pickup loop as it appears to be intermittent. Temperature can be an issue with this type of setup.

 

Woo. I replaced that pickup loop tonight (after towing it home AGAIN), and it went right away. This is good news, but time will tell...

 

Additionally, my coil is now leaking some clear oily stuff. Is this a problem? Should I replace it with a new one, or not bother? What does it mean?

The coil uses that oil for heat transfer. Replace the coil with either a good used one or new one.

see everybody, just listen to me, and everything will be ok =]

So far, so good. One more question though, the new coil that I just picked up reads "Use with external resistor." The previous one didn't say that, and I'm curious if this will be a problem or if they are all like that, or what's up with that?

 

Thanks for all your help guys!

The resistor is used to limit the current to the coil in the run mode. It will drop the voltage to plus side of the coil. You can measure the voltage on the plus side of the coil to ground. If you have about 10 volts there with the key turned to 'ON' then you should be ok. If the voltage is at 12 volts or more, then you will need to add a resistor.

Alright!

Thanks for all your help guys! For future reference to this thread, it turned out to be the pickup coil inside of the distributor. It wasn't hard to replace, and thankfully, I didn't have to re-time the engine.

 

Thanks a million. It's great to have the subie running like a champ again.

Your welcome for the help. Glad you got it working right.