Re: 1987 Mercruiser 5.7 260 Ski Ignition
Thanks for the tips, all quite helpful. Here's where I'm at. I'm the original owner of the boat, so I know the wiring is as it was when it floated out of the factory. The new breakerless distributor is installed. I'm trying to avoid cranking the engine at this point to keep it in a known state as far as the timing goes until I'm sure about the wiring. I'm using the stock coil with a "use external resistor" label. There are two wires on the + side of the coil; purple/yellow going to starter solenoid, and either faded purple or pink, (it's hard to tell) the wiring schematic indicates that it should be purple. I now understand the role of the wire coming from the starter solenoid is to provide a full 12v while the starter is cranking. The other wire is energized with the key in the run position but it shows a consistent 12.4v whether it's attached to the coil or loose. I'm guessing that because of the lack of actual contact points in the new distributor, I'm not seeing a drop in voltage since there is no current in the circuit (other than what the meter is drawing), hence no resistance. With this in mind a put a small test light in the circuit and show a drop in voltage to about 11.8v. Shorting it directly to ground brings the voltage down to .5v and the wire gets noticeably warm. I'm assuming that these would be characteristics of a resistance wire. Am I on the right track here? Is there any advantage to bypassing the resistance wire and installing a ballast resistor in its place?<br /><br />elpaso - Please pardon my newbieness, but as a matter of fact I did do a search before posting, it was just too specific to my application to turn up anything useful. Maybe I'm taking your post the wrong way, but if you are going to get your undies in a bunch about answering a question more than once, maybe you should take a break. A simple direction to a previous post is all that is required.
