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Oh well, maybe someone else will run into a broken bolt etc...

Great, thank you again Howard. Where it stands now, I have both the ignition wire and the distributor wire connected to the negative terminal and what a appears to be a grounding wire attached to the positive terminal and a bolt on the coil bracket. This is how the car was set up when I received it. Do you know of any spot on the website that has a 1954 wiring diagram? I cleaned the carb with gumout as well. Almost lost the straw down the throat. The 35 mph cruising rpm bogging seems to have dissipated...I think...the car does have the petronix flamethrower #40011 1.5 ohm coil on it with no issues..yet...

All good. BigKev had the 1954 wiring diagram.

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I came across this on the net:

"A coil with reversed polarity will have about a twenty percent lower output which may not show up at idle and low rpms, but can cause an engine to miss or stumble under load and at higher engine rpms."

The lower output or less efficiency has to do with the fact that electrons become much more active when concentrated and are at elevated temperatures. That fits the spark plug operation perfectly as the center electrode will be much hotter than the side electrode and electrons are concentrated on a relatively small area. The side electrode being connected to the shell will be much cooler because of the shell acting as a heat sink. The side electrode is longer so electrons are not as concentrated.

With the wrong polarity the spark could start from anywhere along the length of the side electrode and any distance above the recommended gap and cooler less active and concentrated electrons would tend to result in a weaker spark. With the proper polarity the spark will tend to be stronger and jump much easier when going from the center electrode outward.

Fantastic, all makes sense. So riddle me this.....aside from me adding a new coil, incorrectly reversing the polarity, having the car stumble at cruising rpm. Then fixing the polarity by configuring the coil wires as to when I received the car which is ignition and distributor wires on negative coil terminal and the stumble kind of dissipating.....should I now follow the diagram and your advice and put the ignition wire on neg. terminal and distributor wire on pos. terminal and see what happens? Your help is greatly appreciated.

Do you have the original point ignition or do you have some kind of module and solid state setup. The way you describe 2 wires on the negative terminal and a direct connection to ground on the positive terminal sounds like an aftermarket ignition of some kind. I can't really comment on solid state wiring since that depends on the setup used. Whatever the module or other solid state components would require probably differs between units and I am not too familiar with what is available.

For a non overdrive car with a set of ordinary points and a condenser located inside the dist which would be the standard configuration there would only be 2 wires involved. Power to the coil would be supplied by the wire from ign switch connected to the negative coil terminal and the points would interrupt the flow by their opening and closing connecting the positive coil terminal to ground thru the body of the distributor. If the car has an OD there would be a third wire also connected to the positive terminal which would momentarily go to ground and briefly stop the spark when kickdown is engaged.

Also, just as a cautionary remark, and at the risk of sounding stupid, you HAVE confirmed your your battery is hooked up 'positive ground', right? I say this as when I purchased my car, the previous owner's LICENSED MECHANIC had installed a new battery and had wired it negative earth. Chris

Interesting that you mention that. When I inquired with the previous owner he said the distributor had a Pertronix Ignitor. I thought maybe he was pulling my leg. In fact inside the glove box was a new unopened Pertronix ingnitor. Only thing is, I have a Delco-Remy distributor. I had thought ignitors only work with Autolite distributors. When I pulled the cap off it looked like a normal points distributor with a condenser. The car has a GM 700R4 overdrive trans.

Others will have to say or maybe you could go online and see if the Pertronix will work in a Delco. If so and your car is positive ground and has the Pertronix then here is a possible wiring diagram that might partially explain the way your coil is wired. I know the GM 4L60E transmissions in which there have been a couple of Packard installs require some electrical signals to control the shifts but do not know about the 700R4. I thought those only had a cable connected to the carb linkage to control them but I could be in error. Possibly the other wire connected to the coil negative terminal is some kind of tach signal for the transmission????

No idea if it would be useful but here is a link to a site with test procedures for Pertronix positive ground setups.ttalk.info/Tech/PerPosGndTest.htm

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