Re: Carry around a set of points

Posted by HH56 On 2023/3/26 18:33:30

Points and condensers are the two most likely ignition items that will fail without much notice. Condensers either short or open and if the condenser opens points can burn. If it shorts you will be sitting on the side of the road. The other fail with points is the flat spring that closes them can break. Points, particularly for your car, are not likely to be found at a local O'Reillys if they should fail while on a trip and you are in the middle of nowhere. Condensers too, but at least with a condenser you can buy almost anything the parts store might have and figure a way to temporarily mount it outside the distributor if it won't fit inside. As long as the mounting is grounded it works just as well connected to the outside terminal and wire going to the coil. That is why points and condensers are often the two most important spares you can have. Coils fail, caps can crack, and on some cars, particularly those with resistor type rotors the resistors open and the rotor gives up.

It never hurts to have a small kit of all ignition spare parts to carry even just around town if it is something that is often only found at one of our vendors.