i found something that says my coil wire should have anywhere from 7,700-9000 ohms of resistance, and mine only has 3,000, could this be the reason for not gettin spark?

Well when you ohm a wire to check if its good you are looking for high resistance so your spec sounds right as the 7-9000 would be for plug wires which are longer than coil wires therefor there is more resistance but a short wire like a coil wire will have less resistance. So your coil wire sounds good.

i guess i should rephrase, it does say the coil wire should have 7,700-9000, but if it doesn't have much resistance, could it be the cause of not gettin spark?

Well the spec your talking about always refers to a specified length of wire so a 3"coil wire is gonna have less resistance than a 14" plug wire. I will rip off a coil wire and report the resistance back My hypothesis is that it will be around 3000 ohms, gotta find my DVOM first.

coil wire measures at 6,900 ohms and is about 6inches
plug wire which is over a foot measures 12,900 ohms.
These are old wires though so I suspect they could be changed out, how long is your coil wire? And does anyone know the spec for ohms per foot?

Are you using hi-peformance wires?

the wire in question is 19 1/2 inches long and they're stock replacement O'Reilly specials that are about a year old

Originally posted by aggielr
the wire in question is 19 1/2 inches long

:eek: and your getting only 3 k OHMS? I'm confused!:confused:

i'm not gettin any spark to the dist. and my 19 1/2 inch coil wire has only 3700 ohms, does it need to be replaced? and could this be the problem?

Originally posted by aggielr
i'm not gettin any spark to the dist. and my 19 1/2 inch coil wire has only 3700 ohms, does it need to be replaced? and could this be the problem?

Why is your coil wire so long? I do not understand how the resistance can be so low and cause a problem, but I know not everything. Just so you know I am indeed a newbie who belongs over at JU but those :rainbow:'s banned me so I have came over here, you guys seem a lot nicer.:flipoff2: I am sure someone else here will know if a low resistance on a coil wire could cause a problem, I never experienced a low ohm reading as you describe. Mabey your wire shorted out? That does not seem possible to me though.

its a '79 cj5 w/ motorcraft ignition, and i know i should swap to hei, but i don't have the money for that right now, but i'm thinkin about buyin a junkyard dist, tryin to modify it myself, but i'll see how that works out

check out ebay for a distributer too, I have seen several GM small diameter distributers for $10! ...and these are for the late model small block efi ones.

Ahhhh Cletus, it is not the wire. I would look at the ignition module if I were you......