1957 Pertronix | Page 3 | Ford Thunderbird club group 1955-2005 T-Bird models

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1957 Pertronix

  • Thread starter Thread starter dickday0
  • Start date Start date
I've always had good luck with Pertronix but things do fail from time to time. I also never really had much problems with the old points and condenser setup but I did get tired of having to readjust them. Even on my HO Pontiac 400 back in the day it wasn't the points that caused me to have to do a tune up every 6 months, it was the lead fouling on the spark plugs from the heavily leaded premium fuel.

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Hwoodlive said:
Bumping this old post in case other readers encounter my recent Pertronix failure experience. I've used Pertronix units for many years on my various old Fords, and love them. I know nothing of the Pertronix II and III models; I've only used the "original", which replaces the points and condenser inside the distributor cap. They've been absolutely flawless... UNTIL this started happening: after a couple minutes of run time, my car would immediately stall (no stumble, no rough running, just an instant quit). I couldn't restart right away, but after :30 seconds or so, she'd fire right up and I'd have no further problems. During on one of these episodes, I checked the carburetor. Good accelerator pump squirts, so she wasn't starving for fuel, and the instant-quit indicated an ignition issue anyway. I checked grounds, connections, voltage readings, and began one-by-one switching each ignition component with spares. Voila! It was the Pertronix unit, the piece which mounts on the points-and-coil plate. A quick check with an ohmmeter showed an open circuit in the unit, as compared with two known good units, which show some resistance. I have no idea why it failed; the car is otherwise bone-stock and I'm using Pertronix' Flamethrower coil in the exact configuration they recommend. So... go figure. One of those random occurrences to remind you that even an upgrade to a more "reliable" system can still have problems.
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One of the lessons I learned from this forum was to run an additional ground wire from my distributor to the block due to the poor grounding of the old distributor to the block. I believe this has saved me a lot of problems
 
I have used Pertronix for years on many cars. Best “drivability” improvement you can make. The 1281 doesn’t require a hotter coil.
 
johnstrow said:
I have used Pertronix for years on many cars. Best “drivability” improvement you can make. The 1281 doesn’t require a hotter coil.
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None of them require a hotter coil, that's all marketing and extra profit. The only coil issue that needs to be checked is the coil resistance, esp for the original ignitor models. There is a minimum value, which I don't recall but the instruction sheets for the ignitors have the info.
 
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