Team -

Back from Vegas, and managed a few minutes in the garage last night. Taped the coil HT lead to the valve cover to get a smaller gap and cranked - saw an anemic orange spark, so at least the unit is working.

Rechecked the voltage to the coil: 6V cranking and 4.7V with ignition on.

Plan to check wiring for corrosion/resistance and possibly come off of pre-resistor to try to get some more juice to the coil.

Chuck

__________________
Chuck Taylor
Falls Church VA
'66 200, '66 230SL, '96 SL500. Sold: '81 380SL, '86 300E, '72 250C, '95 C220, 3 '84 280SL's '90 420SEL, '72 280SE, '73 280C, '78 280SE, '70 280SL, '77 450SL, '85 380SL, '87 560SL, '85 380SL, '72 350SL, '96 S500 Coupe

I don't know the Cranes, but the 1st version of the stock transistorized ignition wants 2.5 - 3.5v. The non-transistorized system expects about 9v there.

-CTH

__________________
- cth350@gmail.com
http://www.111lakeside.com/

I think that this car had one of the early CD units, judging from the two ballast resistors. There is also a large metallic object under the battery.

I think that Mercedes installed the CD unit to get a hotter spark without frying the points.

Supposedly, I can jack up the voltage because the Crane unit is "point-less" - using the photo-voltaic approach.

Chuck