Fusible link wire broke, cranks but no spark

[Nate Yi]

Hello all!

I've got a '69 Coronet that I stuck a 440 from a 1978 motorhome that died on the freeway the other day. The fusible link wire had apparently been chewed on and disconnected as I was on the freeway. Engine started dying slowly so I pulled over where it died completely.

Since then, it just cranks and cranks with no spark. It does kind of backfire when I turn the key to the off position after I've been cranking for a bit. After doing some research, I replaced the ballast resistor, ignition switch, and bypassed the bulkhead connector and jumped the connection with a single length of healthy wire to no avail.

Could the sudden cut in power have fried something? I have yet to replace anything in my distributor, ignition control unit, or ignition coil. I did, however, test another coil I had lying around that it behaved the exact same way.

I ran out of groceries a week and a half ago and I'm starting to get sick of eating rice every day. It'd be nice having a running car again

 

[67 B-body]

with a meter on the "-" side of the coil, you should see the curcuit open and close while cranking. this is what happens when saturation occurs. The ground is lost by the ign system, saturating the secondary side of the coil and the gap is then jumped at the spark plug as it searchs for available ground. This is assuming you have power down to the "+" side of the coil itself. We still do the same thing old points would have done years back, but its done with the module instead. put the key to the run position, you should have something less than 12.6V "I think 10V" on the "
+" side. While cranking you should have the full 12.6V to the coil "+" side.