Guy's I am replacing the coil on my 1949 F6 with a flathead 239. My old coil is in bad shape and has bat on one hook up and I can not read the other. My new coil has + on one connection and - on the other which one goes to the distributor the +or -. Ok after I sent this I found the below info on a google search. Is this correct to the best of your collective knowledge.


COIL CONNECTIONS:
On a positive ground system, the feed from the ignition switch is to connect to the negative marked terminal on the coil. If connected wrong, the coil output will be about 14% less at idle. This percent of reduced coil output increases to as much as 30% as rpm’s increase. The decreased coil output causes hard starting and poor performance.

 

Is your truck still 6v Pos. ground? If so, the (+) terminal on the new coil goes to the distributor (points), the (-) goes to ignition power.

 

Yes it is still pos ground 6v until I get it running then I want to switch it to 12v. Thank you for the reply I was leaning that way but was not sure and was certain I was not the first to incounter this problem again thanks for the quick reply.

 

WoW, this positive ground thing is messin with my head....

Timely question....

THANKS

 

I myself changed the coil in my 49 f3 with the flathead, after i changed it it worked for about 4 blocks and quit, now i replaced the points condenser rotor and still nothing so now i'm going to replace the coil again and see what happens i have no idea why the new coil would only work for about 4 blocks of driving. I also tried getting a new cap from oriellys and the new cap they gave me snapped the new rotor and the old one, so now i'm going to have to find a cap someplace else.

 

Bob, I wonder if your distributor has a lot of slop in the upper bushing, allowing the rotor to wobble so much it hits the posts in the cap. Before I went thru another cap, I think I'd pull the dizzy and check it out. Then put a new cap on it and spin it by hand, see if it's hitting again.

 

Just a question...
My coil is marked with "Bat" and "Dist"

For positive ground, does this get reversed?
Since "Distributor" goes through the points "to ground".... Should the terminal marked "Dist" be connected to the "battery" which would be the Negative terminal?
I don't know why this is so hard for me to understand... I "get" electricity...

 

Nope, Bat still goes to power, Dist still goes to points. One side of the coil secondary winding is connected to ground via the case. You want the Dist connection to go to the same ground.

 

Ross,
Thanks... something so simple....

 

You might want to check the voltage and amperage going to the coil. It should have about 6.3 or 6.4 volts to the coil with 3 to 7 amps. If less than that, particularly amps, look for dirty or loose connections between the coil and the ignition switch in the primary circuit.