Sorry this isn't *exactly* Chevelle related, but I'm hoping you guys can help a fellow A-Body owner!

Working on my 65 Oldsmobile 442 tonight. Just brought it out from Winter hibernation and was playing around with it tonight when it suddenly (and unexpectedly) died.

Looking it over, I can't figure it out for the life of me. For some reason, there is no spark. I have a standard distributor with pertronix conversion. Using an MSD blaster 2 coil with 12v directly from the fuse box.

For sure the carb is getting gas.
Battery has been recharged and I'm getting over 12v
I checked the primary wire to the coil and I'm getting 12v with the ignition on, 9v cranking.
I have another car that uses the same MSD coil, and I tested the coil on that car and it worked fine.

I pulled a sparkplug wire to check for spark - nothing.
I pulled the primary wire off the distributor cap and no spark there, either.

So this one has me stumped. I've got gas to the carb. Power to the coil. But no spark to the distributor.

Is there a sure-fire test for the coil to make sure that's my problem? Is there a way I can hook-up the coil to confirm spark?

Thanks VERY much!

sounds like the pertronix (hall effect) module might have died and it's not triggering the coil to fire, coils rarely fail. Try a temporary set of points ?

Take off the original wire that is on the negative side of the coil now and attach a new wire about 12-18" long to it (16-18 gauge wire is fine). Strip the other end of this wire to where you can touch it to a bare metal spot (ground) on the engine somewhere.
Next, pull out the coil wire from the distributor and place the end close to a bare metal spot (ground) to where now when you have the ignition on, quickly touch and untouch this jumper wire from the coil to ground. If the coil is working then you should see a spark jumping from the coil wires end to ground. Essentially with this wire off of the negative side of the coil being quickly touched and untouched from ground acts as the trigger like a set of points would be doing. You just can't do this by removing a plug and plug wire as the rotor may not be aligned with that terminal on the distributor.

Jim

I've had some buddies that had some problems with Pertronix dist. I would think that is your culprit.