66 tbird

i started to test the ignition wires wiith the meter at 12 volts. i put the black on ground of battery and used to red pos, to test the wires. i also have the car on a battery charger while im doing this its on jump start. one of the wires read 10.66 and when i turned the ignition it read 11.77so im thinking its not the ignition and also checked yellow stereo wire for power it read 10.66, when i turned ignition it read 10.76. i also checked the neg wire on the engine it seemed fine. but i ran into a problem, i tested then metal on the car and it gave of pos, instead of negative and the ignition coil is hot. i no the metal on the car is sapposed to be negative so i figure positve has to be making contact with the metal or a wire is crossed or something

With the voltmeter negative lead connected to the negative battery terminal, when you touch the car body with the positive voltmeter probe, the meter should read ZERO. If you are getting positive voltage on the car body, THE GROUND CABLE, THE NEGATIVE LEAD FROM THE BATTERY IS NOT MAKING A GOOD CONNECTION!! Most cars have TWO negative leads off the battery. One goes to the engine block and the other goes to the car body. If you do not have a body ground wire, MAKE ONE!

It is normal for the coil to get hot when the key is on. There are usually 2 wires on the “hot” side of the coil. One comes from the “start” post on the ignition switch and is a standard copper wire. One comes from the IGN post of the switch and is resistance wire. The coil is actually a 6 volt coil. It is fed 12 volts (for a hot spark) while cranking but when you release the key to the ignition on position, the resistance wire drops the voltage to the coil to 6 volts… Have fun and good luck.

All of the connections, especially ground connections to the body and or engine block must be CLEAN, SHINY, METAL!! No paint, no rust!