Subject: Re: ignition question
Author: Patrick Hayes
Date: Apr 15, 2005, 10:15 PM
Post ID: 1718711199
Ted Ward wrote:
| I was messing with my timing light just now and hooked it up to the coil wire instead of to one of the spark plugs and cranked the engine over by hand and noticed that the light flashes when the points close AND when the points open, so twice each time around. Is that supposed to happen? |
Well, no actually. The spark occurs at the instant the points crack
OPEN. So, you should only see one spark per cylinder cycle.
Please explain further what kind of light you are using and how you
hooked it up. A normal strobe light will have two small guage leads for
12v priimary for (+) and ground. The light will also have a third,
fat lead for the spark secondary or spark plug wire.
With the above light, NOTHING gets hooked to the coil. The (+) and (-)
get hooked to the battery or other power and ground sources and the fat
gets hooked to the spark plug secondary lead(either in direct series or
inductively).
I can't figure out, for the life of me, what you have done here.
BTW, for those who are in competition for the worlds coolest tool
collection, I have an inductive strobe timing light I bought from
JC-Witless. It is powered by two internal "D" cell batteries, so it
only has one lead, the fat one, for clamping on the spark plug wire.
This is very useful for my '46 Guzzi Superalce. Since it has a 6v
battery system and magneto ignition, I have no place to hook up any
normal timing lights. Sinc this tool is internally powered, it doesn't
care what kind of machine makes the spark. Heck, I can use it on my
Briggs and Stratton lawn mower if I wish.
Patrick Hayes
Fremont CA