Checking the Spark

Rob came over yesterday to help me trouble shoot the non starting engine on Diane. While looking things over he saw that the 12 volt to 6 volt reducer wasn't needed to start the engine, and said it might even be the reason it wasn't turning over. While looking at the coil he noticed it said it needed a 12 volt resistor. I also asked him about the fuel pump because it sounded like it wasn't getting any fuel up to it. He suggested that it might just need a new gasket, so it would make a tight seal. He said not to worry too much about that right now, that we could just bypass the whole thing and run gas right into the carburetor with a pipe and gravity. Rob also thought it would be a good idea to get a battery charger and replace some of the old rotten wires.

We headed to the store to buy the resistor, wire, battery charger, and some hose clamps. When we got back to the house we removed the reducer and replaced it with the resistor. We rewired the line from the coil to the resistor, and checked all of the plug connections. We reconnected the battery and tested the line from the coil for spark. There was some, not a lot and not very strong, but there was a spark. Rob had to leave to head back down to Salem, and wanted to beat the traffic.

Before Margaret left for work, she helped me and we tried to start Diane again, with no luck. I talked to Rob, and he said it could still be any number of things like, the timing, the wires not in the right place, the coil, since there was such a small spark. Today I am going to look for schematics on the wiring of the cap and plugs, as well as trying to figure out the timing of "Diane".