47 Champ - wire to coil?

[uasrs]

When my dad would have trouble starting an old car, he'd run a wire from the positive terminal of the battery to the positive of the coil on a negative ground system. On a positive ground system like the 47 Champ, what would be the setup for running a wire to the coil - negative battery to negative side of the coil?

[Dick Steinkamp]

The "hot" wire should go from the non grounded terminal of the battery (the negative terminal in your case if your car hasn't been altered), to the switch side of the coil (marked negative - in your case if the car hasn't been altered). This would be the coil terminal that DOES NOT have a wire from it to the bottom of the distributor.

Before you do this, just check the negative terminal on the coil with a volt meter or test light with the key on. If you have power there, you don't need the jumper.

[uasrs]

Awesome, thanks for the info.

[StudeRich]

I sense a little misunderstanding here! Dick is absolutely correct that this is the correct way to hot wire an ignition system to avoid using a broken or no key Ign. switch.

But your question stated that your dad did this on a negative ground system, which I would presume was a 12 volt system, because the only advantage to doing that would be on a 12V car to bi-pass the resister to get a hotter spark to fire a tired, worn system (probably with nearly closed points) and this does work on 12 volt systems.

However if you have a Positive ground system, you also have a 6 volt system which has no resistance wire or ballast resister, so doing this will do nothing to improve your situation! [:0]

My advice: repair the system! Adjust, clean, check or replace the points, check distributor breaker plate ground wire and wire from coil terminal to points for bare, worn or broken wires.

Of course Dick's advice to check voltage at the coil is spot-on also, and a simpler way to say it, BUT you still need to fix it! And now you understand what "Dad" was doing and why!

StudeRich -Studebakers Northwest Ferndale, WA