billdz10

I wasn't paying attention and cross up the polarity on my coil wires. It's a 89 454 mag. I cranked it for abit and the battery ground was good and hot. I swapped the wires back but the engine doesn't even attempt to start. Swapped to coil thinking I might have cooked it. Didn't get a chance to check it out completely. Anyone know what i could have cooked doing this ? ignition module ? etc.

Thanks

Bill

Audiofn

Should not have cooked anything other then the coil that I can think of.... Test for power at the coil, then just ground the negative side and see if you get spark.

Jon

Cord

iTrader: (2)

There is a breaker on the side of the engine that could have poped. There are also a couple of fusable links that could have burned up. I believe that one is on the alternator. Another may be on the starter solinoid.

Gary Anderson

use this to check out the components.
http://www.marinemechanic.com/site/page251.html

billdz10

I started to follow the troubleshooting guide. I have 12 volts from the positve terminal of the coil to groundThe strange thing is I have 12v on the negative terminal of the coil to ground also. Didn't see any checks for that is it normal ?

merlin540

Hey Bill Call Me I Will Help You Straighten It Out See Ya Charlie

billdz10

Took the coil wire off the dist. and it wasn't generating a spark. Didn't change anything and tested later it sparked, plugged it back in and the motor ran for a minute. Now no spark again. Changed coil same thing. Any ideas ?

brewster

sensor in distributor may be bad.

mcollinstn

If a coil was a "normal" transformer with isolated primary and secondary windings, there would have been no way to damage it by wiring it backwards.

But a coil is an "autotransformer" that uses the same set of windings for both primary and secondary, it just uses "some" of the windings for the primary portion. This is why you might could have damaged the coil. Still, though, if you read the proper resistance between the terminals, then it rules out coil damage.

Remove all the wires from the coil. You should see somewhere between 3/4 Ohm to 1 Ohm between the primary terminals. And there should be around 10k Ohms between either of the primary posts and the plug wire terminal. If that checks okay, then your coil should generate a spark, and more importantly, you haven't hurt it by wiring it backwards. Other coil maladies may cause it to malfunction at higher temps, but if the ohms are okay it should at least start and run at low rpm.

robyw1

What he said ^^

Roby