All,

I recently had an experience I just have to share. I bought a 69 Valiant going on 3 weeks ago. It ran when I bought it, though roughly. And it continued to run for quite a while. Eventually, I had a mechanically inclined friend over to look at the project. He opened the hood, and said,"You sure this thing runs?" The ignition coil was wired WRONG- not just backwards, but the negative went to the distributor,and there was no positive attached. So the several times I started the car it was apparently running by dieseling. Or on hope and dreams...

Just a reminder to check EVERYTHING when buying a car.

Out of curiosity, is the coil shorted internally? In other words, what was the coil-to-ground resistance? I'm very surprised it would start!