Coil Life

[meadowbrook]

I was wondering what the group believes about ignition coils' life vs performance.

 

I have the original (I believe) 6V coil with the tack welded bracket on my '50 Dodge Meadowbrook and it has been working just fine as far as I can tell.

 

I recently replaced it with a new one from Bernbaum, which requires a separate clamp, just as a preventive measure and maybe the hope of more efficient operation.

 

No felt different in performance, but I was wondering, do coils degrade with age or just up and quit suddenly?

 

I am tempted to return to my original coil just for appearances sake and the bragging rights (silly) to claim it is the original coil.

 

Is there a way to test a coil to determine the secondary voltage? Or if I measure resistances, is less better?

[jeffsunzeri]

Unlike capacitors/condensers, coils do not degrade with age unless physically damaged. Physical damage to the case and leakage (allowing corrosion and short circuiting) in the case may cause internal failure. Other causes of internal failure would be excessive primary voltage/amperage physically burning the coil windings.

 

There are testers that will measure the secondary output (and thus overall health) and I've found them to be extremely helpful on several occasions. The old oscilloscopes measure the coil output, and I use a modern solid state unit which is pretty accurate and has memory capabilities.

 

I predict some in this group will disagree wildly with me.

[TodFitch]

. . . I predict some in this group will disagree wildly with me.

And some will agree with you. My opinion is that coils are extremely reliable.

 

I am still running the original 81 year old coil on my car. I have a couple of spares on the shelf just in case including one with the clamp on adapter for the firewall mounting. I expect the spares will continue to live on the shelf for many years to come as I don't expect the one on the car to fail anytime soon.

 

I've only had one coil failure ever, happened to be on a '57 VW and it was not a "hard failure". That is, it would still run most of the time, only cutting out when it got hot. On close inspection there was a crack on the secondary tower and it was leaking.

[Jerry Roberts]

I had two good used coils sitting on the garage shelf . After a few years each one started to leak oil  and I threw them both out .