My trailing coils won't fire, i was told it was the ignitor, but i tested it and it seems to work, what else could it be?

 

I had an ignition problem where I'm sure the contacts inside the distributor were broken somehow. After replacing a failing ignitor it still didn't work, so I eventually swapped the whole distributor with one from my spare engine. I figured that maybe the wires leading to those contact points (the red and green ones) were failing and this also caused my ignitor failure. I never had proof but that was all that was left after I checked/replaced the ignitors and coils and once I swappped the whole mechanism the problem went away.

 

ok, swithced the coils and ignitors, and now it seems to work...weird...cant replace distributor, its stuck to the block and there is no chance of removing it or changing the timing....

 

I'm going to assume you checked the stupid stuff like power to the coil, and coil ground?

 

my dad went through that stuff...im not sure...

 

ill go for a test drive in a minute...trailing seems to work, it shocked me...lol

 

I had a problem on mine with a bad magnetic pickup.

Remove the dizzy cap, rotor, and the metal plate under the rotor and you'll see the two white magnetic pickups... There's a little 4 pointed deal that spins right near them... Pass a flat head screwdriver right by the front of one of the pickups with the key on and it should create a spark. (It's how that 4 pointed thingy works.)

 

ok, ill try those things..

 

Those magnetic pickups were what I was trying to describe.

 

They've all been black in the dizzies I've seen. Yes, try the screwdriver test. It's what I sometimes use on my spare pickup I use for bench testing igniton components.