1984 long bed, 22r carb engine. Right in the middle of an overheating problem, my car won't start. Occasionally it will fire once or twice, but I'm stuck at home for now. It looks like no spark getting to distributor (using a kv meter and pickup clamp on coil wire). I've measured the primary and secondary resistance on the coil(it's Type III coil w/ignitor below coil), and it's right with the specs. Can the coil still be bad with these good specs?

What is the definitive way to check the ignitor, and does anyone know where to find an inexpensive one if it's bad.

they are expensive, however there is a mod to use cheap GM parts. i'll try to find that link soon

philly...I would really appreciate that link if you can find it.

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=179253

goodluck

Every book I've read gives you ways to check the igniter, but in the end they say to replace it with a known working igniter if all checks pass. I believe the only definitive way is to use an oscilloscope.

Problem solved without replacing ignitor. Found an intermittent short that was cutting power to the ignitor(via the red/black wire). Plugged my old ignitor/coil in (I replaced it 8 months ago because of this same problem) and it ran fine. The short(which I haven't fixed completely) is in the large 2 piece connector just behind the driver's side headlight. There are 4 power wires coming into this connector from the battery and fuse box on the passengers side. If I twist the 4 wires at this connector, I can get the power to cut out in the wire going to the ignitor. Nothing else cuts out, but this is a circuit that must go to the ignition switch and then back to the ignitor.

I had to unwrap the wiring loom (that comes out of the passenger side engine compartment wall and goes to the ignitor, and also to this connector) and play with the wires inch by inch. Strangely, sometimes moving the red/black wire right next to the ignitor would set off the short...even though the connector was 18 inches away. I'm mentioning all this because this was a short that didn't short out for 8 months, and then wouldn't stop shorting for two days until I started messing with the wires. And in the past two days sometimes the engine would fire once or twice (just to keep me interested) before it would fail completely.

I've been reading that these Toyota ignitors can last 300,000 miles...nice to know that now that I have a good spare. I also tested the kilovolt output from the coil and was getting 9 KV with either ignitor/coil set, at idle. This seemed a little low, but does anyone know what it should be. It does go higher when I rev up the engine.

Thanks all for the help.