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I'm in a ufamiliar position with my '50 Standard Eight. The car will not start and I am fighting myself with every attempt to put things right. Let me explain:

Last week I filled the car with gas and thought that adding some of the Sta-Bil 360 additive would be a good idea (it's supposed to clean and protect the entire fuel system with todays ethanol fuels). I then drove the car about 10 miles with no adverse conditions, parked for about an hour. After driving the car for about ? mile, she died and wouldn't re-start (I wore down the battery in the attempt). I tried to jump-start her with a 12v jump-box. It didn't start and I'm afraid that I may have screwed-up the ignition system. I had the car towed home and she sat for a few days.

After sitting for a few days, I charged the battery and tried her again and she started and ran for about 15 minutes and died. I thought that it might be the coil and I bought a new one at Advanced Auto. I installed the coil apparently BACKWARDS (the wire from the distributer was attached to the MINUS terminal of the coil). After looking at the wiring diagram which shows the wire going from the distributor to the POSITIVE terminal of the coil.

Have I fried something or everything with my desperate attempts to get her to run again?

No, hooking the coil up "backwards" shouldn't cause damage
although it won't work as efficiently that way.Oh by the way,
do you have an inline fuel filter?

You have not fried anything -- unless it was hooked up to 12 volts for a long time. The coil will work in either polarity but will not have as efficient a spark if hooked up backwards.

You want the spark to jump from the center electrode to the outer shell electrode which it will do if polarity is correct. If backwards, it will try and jump the other way and because electrons are coming from a relatively large cool surface in comparison to the center electrode, won't be as concentrated so will be weaker. Some hard to start problems can be traced to incorrect coil polarity.

You've changed the coil but condensers are another known source of sudden or intermittent failure.

In answer to Kansasboy, yes I do have an in-line fuel filter. It's mounted along the frame, under the drivers door. It is a metal type, not clear plastic, so I cannot see inside. I originally had the same thought about the fuel filter, but don't you know that I always take the more difficult path and started right out with the ignition system.

Howard, I'll try and replace the condenser, maybe that and the fuel filter will do the trick! I'll keep y'all posted.

If the condenser failed, chances are the points have burned or oxidized a bit; if they were new you can probably get away with burnishing them to clean surfaces so do this at the same time you change the condenser. Any always carry a spare condenser in your glove box. Chances are you can look up the correct condenser but they really don't vary much between 4, 6, 8 12 and 16 cylinders, 6 or 12 volts, (+) or (-) ground. I pretty much use NAPA AL-869 for most everything.

Thanks, I was lucky enough to receive a new set of points and condenser when I bought the car.

I just discovered another issue that may be a major problem. I looked at the battery charger (Sears Diehard brand). It has two switch settings 2a and 4a. Only thing is that underneath the large 2a and 4a labels are smaller 12v and 6v respectively. I thought that it was just a 6 volt charger, I was WRONG AGAIN! I DID have the battery charging at the 2a/12v setting for a couple of days!

Knowing that, have I fried any or everything?

I hear that one good thing about having Alzheimer's is that you're always meeting new people

As long as the ign was off you shouldn't have hurt anything in the car with the possible exception of the clock (if it worked). The voltage is so brief it may have survived but the mechanical winding motion would have been fairly hard.

At only 2 amps the battery may have survived but at the very least check the water levels and make sure nothing "boiled" over. If the cells are low and electrolyte is below the top of plates or if it doesn't appear to hold a charge then it probably was damaged.

Thanks again, I'll check all and let you know how things faired.

Are you sure the thing you call a filter is not a inline fuel pump? That is normally where they are mounted and yes they probably have a filter included. I had similar problem with my 49 Packard-it quit in a neighbors front yard-I had to clean filter in the inline pump. You can get some starting fluid and shoot down the carb to see if ignition or fuel-my bet it is fuel.

Could be a fuel issue. Like something is clogging the filter or the pickup on the tank when the car is running and sucking fuel. Then you let it sit awhile and the what ever was clogging the inlet floats away and lets the car start again. Then it sucks the debris back up and clogs again.

You can disconnect the fuel line at the carb, and attach a rubber hose that feeds into a bucket and make sure you are getting good fuel flow. If not, that is your problem.

I battled fuel issues for about 6 months on my car. I could idle and run the car in the garage for hours with no problem. Once I started to drive it, it, the sloshing fuel break loose debris in the tank which would quickly clog the fuel filter.

Finally I had the tank media blasted inside and out and had a protective coating baked on. No more problems since then.