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On the voltage supply to the coil, on wire coming from ign switch you should have battery voltage which should be very close to 6v.. When the engine is actually cranking it might drop a few tenths or when the engine is running and charging, it might be close to 7v. With a starter load the voltage will drop down a few tenths of a volt but should not get close to 5v or the spark will be weak and might not jump the gaps. If it does drop that low the starter is pulling excess current and should be checked. Dirty battery cable connections, a weak battery, or too small of battery cables can also cause the voltage to drop low when the starter is cranking.

On the coil terminal going to the distributor, you should have the same close to 6v reading if the points are open and close to 0v if they are closed. Cranking the engine should see the voltage jump up and down but the change will be so rapid a typical meter won' t be able to give an accurate voltage reading that fast. If the voltage at the coil terminal going to distributor never changes with the cranking and stays high, the points are not closing or there is a break in a wire somewhere. If it is low and stays low, the points are not opening or there is a short in the capacitor, the cloth covered internal connection wire in the distributor, or the wire between the coil and the distributor. If there is an overdrive there could also be a problem in the engine cutout circuit keeping the voltage low. If the voltage does not approach 0 as the low value with the points closed but stays somewhere between 0 and 1-2 volts the ground connection to the distributor is poor and needs to be looked into..

6.5 volts at coil with ignition on.

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That's good news!

Seems that the issue may be in your distributor. Install your new parts and see if you get spark.

As Howard mentioned if there is a heavy draw somewhere that could be impacting your ignition, but let's get new parts on first.

I suppose there is a possibly that you have a bad wire from the coil to the distributor. You could check resistance on it, and your plug wires, to make sure they're okay.

Here's a video, skip forward to 3:26 for how to check with a multi-meter.youtu.be/4_EFGAFxi1w?si=nvNZphyE3LXHqAGk

I'll watch the video and go through procedure above.

The points I picked up from NAPA are not correct. Neither is another set I found in the car. Going to try to locate proper.
How do I tell if current are bad?

Al-11M is what I pulled.

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Close up of removed points.

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That's too bad, but it shouldn't be hard to find the correct ones.

The most common issue with points is pitted/burnt contacts. Generally filing them so they are making good contact again will give them some more life, but they pretty inexpensive so worth while putting in a new set if you can find some today.

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Those don't look good and may not have been making contact, which is a problem for contacts! LOL

A bad condenser can cause points to fail prematurely.

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Just watched. Going to do that and then try them. New condenser, cap, and rotor going on as well.

Both of these points sets are from NAPA.

Called NAPA and they said they aren't available to order or in stock for the car.

No choice but to use current points unless I can find someone with them in Detroit.

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Cleaned per the video.

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