Thanks man, I feel like I'm finally getting somewhere now. Which is the negative terminal on the coil? Is it the one with the black wire going into it?

Donnie

 

The green wire going to the coil is the negative. The black/yellow wire is the positive.

I am guessing that you are following desert's instructions in the DIY section. I always got confused on that writeup when it says to measure the voltage with the wire between the coil and the ICM connected and disconnected. The problem is that there are two wires that connect to both the coil and the ICM.

If you know how to back-probe a connection, you can back-probe the blk/yel and the grn at the coil electrical connector with a sewing needle. Attach the test light across those two sewing pins. The light should be turned off initially when the key is in the II position. It should flash when you try to start the car.

 

I'm not sure I understand what you mean...

Do you mean to stick a needle into the blk/yellow wire and then the other end of the needle into the green wire??

Or two separate needles but I'm using the needles so I can check while it's still connected??

So both the green and blk/yellow wire connections should flash independent of each other when the car is cranking over??

What about just in the on position?


Thank you so much again
\

Donnie

 

Two thin needles. Unplug coil connector. Push needle into where the wire goes into the plastic electrical connector. Try to run the needle on the outside of the wire.

Use a volt meter to see if you have ~0 resistance from the needle to the pin you are back-probing. Plug coil electrical connector back into the coil.

Your 12V test light should have two wires going to it. Hook one end up to blk/yel needle, and the other side to the grn needle.

Does that make sense?

 

PA<

I think I can get it, sorry I'm kind of a dummy sometimes.

I'll check it out tomorrow morning and see if I can figure it out...it will start now because it's the afternoon for some reason...

Donnie

 

Here is the last paragraph from that write-up...does this sum up the same procedure you are describing or are they different?

Thanks

"Another way to test it is with a test lite,,connect a test lite
1 lead to the neg side of the coil the other to any good ground,
have someone crank the engine,
if test lite pulsesÂ* it is a bad COIL ..
if test lite does NOT pulse it is a bad IGNITER"

 

I don't think that setup at the end of desert's writeup will work. The - side of the coil will have voltage at all times, so if you hook up the test light to just the - side of the coil to ground, the light would stay on the whole time.

All you have to do is stick a needle into the back of the blk/yel and second needle in back of the grn at the coil electrical connector. Then attach one wire of your test light to on pin and the second wire of your test light to the second pin.

The resistance part was to make sure that the needle is actually making good contact to with the pin that feeds into the coil.

 

PA,

Thanks so much, I'll get it done first thing tomorrow morning.

 

Back-probing the connections is how you measure stuff while it's still connected & operating. You can get thin needle-like probes for some multimeters, but needles work too.

 

PA<

I'm just having a tough time understanding I'm sorry. Why do I unplug the coil connector? Can't I just stick the needle in through the back while it's still connected?

I don't get how I'm supposed to jam the needle in there and then plug the connector back in while the needles are jammed into the connector??