Club Triumph

Thank you for your kind help.

Yes you are right! I will buy another and see.

As said the coil was to hot to touch and that didnt seem right to me nor the RAC chap.

I may get this one from flea bay as it comes with a ballast resister as well. 122844361776

Regards Karl

hmmm bit pricey what about 181076922133? Also I would check the condition of the points and the gap setting.....

Yes points checked but new. I think even though the condenser is also new. I will change it, just to be on the safe side.

And the above item is ordered.

Thank you again and I will let you know next week how things go.

Yes hope thats the answer.....

Now Ive got to have a rethink about how coils work! I thought the spark travelled from the coil HT connection to a sparkplug via the dizzy, jumped across the plug gap and returned to the coil HT winding to complete the circuit via the engine block and coil casing but now that doesnt appear to be true, arggggh

You're not far off, glang. The coil HT terminal produces a large -ve voltage, which "travels" along the king lead to the rotor arm, where it jumps a gap to one of the plug leads, along to the plug, then jumps another gap to the plug body terminal, through the engine block and earth wire. From there, though, the circuit is completed through the battery and ignition switch to the coil LT +ve terminal. The coil casing is not part of the circuit.

When I bought my first car (a Vitesse Mk1 saloon) its coil was not bolted to the block. Or anywhere else. It was just dangling by the leads. The car still ran beautifully but I figured that fixing the coil properly would reduce wear on the wiring so I did so.

Thanks, never realised that after all these years! I wonder if thats why we originally changed over to -ve earth.....

You might like to look at this external condensor on ebay 143168414446, it will last alot longer

Ok update! 

Well I went out whilst waiting for my new coil and ballast resister to arrive and gave the old girl a try. Can you believe it she started first time.

Now some of you are going to say the coil had time to cool down>>>

However when the car broke down in the town and the RAC chap took me home to pick up a second hand coil that I had sitting in the shed.

And the second coil from my shed presented the same problem.

I did checks on both coils, and both old coils did seem ok. The first coil got hot very fast when connected to the car.

I have now fitted the new coil and ballast resister but still im not sure what caused the problem in the first place.

It wasnt a lose wire as they were checked many times.

Im waiting on a new condenser just in case its that playing up.

A ballasted coil should be 1.5 ohms across the  primery   non  ballast is 3 ohms 

If you run a 3 ohm coil with a 6-8v ballasted feed you get a weak spark as you have halved the HT

Likewise run a 1.5 ohm ballasted coil on 12-14v and you double the current at the points and blow condensers,

 Burn points etc, The HT is doubled and  rotors and caps soon fail .

Coils will get over heated if ignition is left on for long periods and the points are closed 

Do make check the polarity on the coil feed and dizzy line are correct ,  ie  dizzy to negative  

Pete