Hi all --

I went to wake my 72 Swinger from its winter slumber and it sadly wouldn't start. Good action from the starter, but not even a hint of turning over on its own. I pulled a plug and held it against the block, but but not even a hit of spark. Car is in good tune and started quickly and easily with choke every time when I parked it.

I fiddled with some obvious stuff -- found solid 12v at the coil, then swapped the coil for another known good one. Still nothing. Spark plug wires, cap and rotor were all brand new and running well at the time I put the car away. I checked all connections and components and nothing looks bad.

I pulled the coil-to-distributor wire and tested continuity with my multi-meter and got nothing. Thought I'd found the problem, but then I went to the trunk and tested my old coil-to-distributor and also no continuity. Is that supposed to be right? Do these wires have enough resistance to fool a multi-meter into thinking they're not continuous?

Beyond the major components of the original mopar electronic ignition, I'm not that versed in how it all works. Am I missing something? Beyond the coil and cap and rotor, what other parts should I be looking at?

Thanks in advance

Standard wires have 5,000-10,000 ohms per foot,more than that,their bad.Yes your right,continuity tests will not work,use the ohms scale to test wires.Test the points as follows; Connect one side of a test light to coil negative, and other side to ground.With engine cranking,the light should flash,if it stays on continuously,check your points.

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V8?? We don't need no stink'n V8!!

Can't tell which coil-to-distributor wire you're testing - the small-diameter primary one should have zero resistance. The "looks like a spark plug wire" secondary one should have resistance as bigslant6fan describes.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Thanks. I meant the "looks like a spark plug wire" one, so I guess that's fine. The only other wires going to the coil are + and - and each of those is doing what it is supposed to be doing.

It's an electronic ignition, but I assume that the "points check" that you referred to would similarly tell me if the EI unit is workign OK, right?

To make sure the coil is OK, should I be able to hold the distributor end of the the coil-distributor wire near a ground and see a spark? If I do have a spark at that point, then I'll know my problem is with the EI and/or distributor.

Any ideas of any other components that are likely to have gone bad?

?Neutral safety switch disconnected?

Hmmmm....very interesting on the neutral safety switch.

I assumed the neutral safety switch disables that starter altogether, rather than disabling the distributor. (Every once in a while, the starter won't turn when I'm in Park, but it will when in Neutral. I assume that's the only neutral safety switch function).

The flashing test light trick will not work with electronic ignition.

The neutral safety switch disables the starter motor, not the ignition, so that's not it.

Do you have a spare ignition control unit (module) you can swap in?

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Thanks for all the attention you guys are paying me. Any tips help and I truly appreciate it.

Unfortunately I don't have an EI module to swap in. Is there a test I can do to see if my current one is working?

They're only $45ish and swapping it out would cost a fraction of what a shop would take just to tell me it's busted, but I'd still hate to spring if it's not the fix.

Well, given that you're apparently getting 12v to everywhere you need 12v, as long as you've verified that the distributor is actually turning (you've verified this, right?) that kind of narrows it down to either the ignition module or the distributor pickup. Of the two, the module is the more likely failure. If you buy one, get a good brand. I would insist on Standard/BlueStreak: LX100 for the 5-pin module, or LX101 for the 4-pin.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Thanks for all the help. Confirms that there are not any components that I'm overlooking. One more look around to make sure everything looks OK in there, the I'll be swapping the EI module.

If you connect the test light like I said,It WILL work with points,electronic ign. and lean burn and practically all OEM ign. systems.If you narrowed your problems to the ign.box or dist.pick-up you could test the box if you had an extra known good distributor.S/6,small block,or big block it doesn,t matter.Connect the pick-up wires,turn on ign. switch and twist dist.shaft with your fingers and see if you have spark now.

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V8?? We don't need no stink'n V8!!