So it looks like the one with two wires are one from the condenser and the other wire is the one that goes to the ignition coil.
I've never seen that before. There is a lead that connects from the base plate to a screw holding the Vacuum advance canister. That's a ground lead. The condenser lead should attach only at the screw holding the lead from the - side of the coil.
So it looks like the screw from the canister has a wire that goes to a plate of some sort. Do u think I should rearrange these?
Look at the upper right picture in my last post. That is a ground wire. That has nothing to do with the condenser, it goes from the base plate to the VA mounting screw. There should only be one lead from the condenser. It should go to the SCREW on the points set. The condenser lead along with the lead from the - side of the coil go to the SCREW. There shouldn't be any other leads. Maybe take the rotor off and take a picture from the top.
Copy, I just did your test as well. Got 5.2 V on first test and 9.5V on second test. I’m in the process of pullin out the spark plugs.
Perfect, those are the correct readings. We know your resistance is correct and the bypass is working. My question now is the extra wires I am seeing. Just for my sanity, I called another V8 member very familiar with points. The only leads connected to the points screw are the condenser lead, and the - side coil lead.
OK, now I can see it better. That should be fine. Looks like the alternate ground lead is connected to a points mounting screw instead of directly to the base plate. Verify your point gap, and then put it back in on the compression stroke.
I dont get the redundant wire to the points base. The distributor itself it the ground with the points being the switch turning the coil on and off. The condenser is there to help keep the points from arcing. For grins, did you count the teeth on the gear 350 and 455 gears differ by one tooth and the distributors otherwise are interchangeable. ws
I will do that now. I took out the plugs and they were definitely wet. They reeeked of fuel, I don’t have a blow torch unfortunately so I just wiped them down and was gonna wait a little while before throwing them back in their spots
You need to either clean the plugs good or replace them, and have a dwell meter hooked-up to measure dwell while cranking.
Its gotta stay open when youre cranking it. Manually pump the gas if you think it needs more. Dont put your face over the carb when the wife cranks it either! ws
If I remember right .016 gap with a feeler gage is pretty close for point gap for starting. Should be real easy to set that gap on the high lobes of the distributer before you put it back in.
It should be smooth not pinching. And when you rotate the shaft, as they come off the lobe they must close for a bit.
