37 Terraplane coil connection

HI JOHN, lots of opinions on this lately,includeing mine, and some of it inocently wrong. To sort it all out. Coils are made for specificall applications which involve either positive or negative ground. The coil should get WARM not HOT, and yes it does matter as to the voltage delivered to the dist. A simple check is to remove any plug wire and observe the direction the spark travels from the wire to the plug, if you watch closely you will see that it either jumps from plug to wire or from wire to plug, when you have it jumping from wire to plug you have it hooked up correctly and also you will have a slightly longer spark,as the coil has windings that build up energy when properly wired. This is sometimes easyeir to observe at night with no light , same goes for checking for bad wires on an engine that does'nt run just right.

Now thats a good answer to a simple question.

jtroberg wrote:

Gentlemen: here's my situation. I bought a 6v new coil to start my '37 after a very long down period. I rewired the car following the wiring diagram in my shop manual. The coil has the two connections marked + and - in addition to the center high tension lead. Hoping that this question is not too basic, but does the + tap wire go to the ignition switch or to the distributor? Or vice versa, or does it matter? And should the coil get hot?



Thanks!



John T

John---I hope you replaced your coil with a modern day 6 volt one rather than a N.O.S. as it has been my experience that the N.O.S. ones do not hold up. I would also recommend that you relocate the coil to the passenger compartment in order to give it a cooler environment. It is too hot for it under the hood on the 37s. Factory polarity for your car was positive to ground meaning that the positive terminal on the battery goes to ground therefore requiring the positive side of the coil wire to also go to ground. Cliff Minard

What part number is the napa coil for 6 volt Terraplane?

not an expert by any means but, It is my understanding that 12v coils all have a resistor incorperated in the system somewhere, either internal or external, reduceing them to 6v primary input If one wanted to know in depth about coils, type in ignition coils in your browser and you can spend the next week or so confuseing yourself. For you guys that are "hotrodding" your engines find the one from HOTROD MAGAZINE, it gets down to some real nitty-gritty on fine tuneing your engine for specific results. For us old geezers that just go for a leiserly drive it seems that anything more than a reputeablle brand stock coil is not needed, then again ,that HotRod article has some good advice for low rpm {under 3000} users Coils: 6v from any car will work on any other 6v car,pick the one with the highest OUTPUT and the parts guy won't know, 12v come with internal resister or W/O and require an ext resister call my grandson when your done sifting that stuff on the net,I'll be driveing my GOLDEN HUDSON > LOOK FOR THE BLUE SPARK< THEN YOU GOT IT RIGHT

Thanks mars, I wrote all of the parts down you listed. I had some but now i know what to look for when i go to a parts store or a swapmeet.