1959 coil balister

[rick hendel]

I have a 1959 that would not start. I traced the problem to a cracked coil balister. I put a new one in and it also failed,the second one I put in seems to work and the car started right up. I only ran it for two or three minutes and noticed the ceramic balister really got hot so I turned off the engine so I would not fry the second one . My question is should they get real hot to the touch. What not what should I be looking for . Thanks Rick

[Mike M.]

Re: 1959 coil balister

when functioning properly, a ballast resistor will get hot enough to be real hot to the touch. mike

[John D.]

Re: 1959 coil balister

Rick, Look at the back side of a ballist resistor or resistor block as some call it. Notice the wiring? Sorta like a toaster in your kitchen so naturally the thing gets very hot. It controls the voltage to the coil. A mismatch of the coil and BR can result in a fried ignition system for sure. TI's don't have this part. That questions comes up about once a week. Look on the archives as there are a ton of posts on BR's. John