Rembrant's new non-Bullnose project

[FuzzFace2]

I think I agree that the cleanest place for the starter relay is on the fender. And I believe I'd do it as shown below.

But on the trigger wire, the current draw apparently depends on the starter. Jim's PMGR from DB doesn't pull much but my PMGR from Powermaster pulls more than a Bosch relay can handle as I had problems with it. And when I asked Powermaster they said I needed to continue to use the big relay on the fender. Our page on PMGR Starters calls for a #10 wire.

I am with Gary on the #10 wire for the starter trigger wire.

I run a McRobb PMGR starter, made in the USA, on my drag car and they also say use #10 wire and is wired like shown.

It was done almost 15 years ago now.

Dave ----

[ArdWrknTrk]

......

Oh, and what size wire do I need for the trigger wire to the PMGR starter? I seem to recall that it only draws 4amps?

IIRC it was 40A to pull and 13A to hold.

Gary does have the sheet here on the site.

I'm using a 40A cube relay and 12Ga. wire.

It's been working for as long as I've had my little relay box installed,

 

[Rembrant]

......

Oh, and what size wire do I need for the trigger wire to the PMGR starter? I seem to recall that it only draws 4amps?

IIRC it was 40A to pull and 13A to hold.

Gary does have the sheet here on the site.

I'm using a 40A cube relay and 12Ga. wire.

It's been working for as long as I've had my little relay box installed,

Gents,

I'll pulled the new DSII wiring harness out of the package today and it prompted me to check my new coil (again) to see if I could determine if it required an external ballast resistor or not. Ideally it is indicated on the outside of the coil, but it is not noted on mine. It's a Spectra Premium C610 coil from RockAuto:

https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=6280596&cc=1121443&pt=7060&jsn=454

Screen snip below. I ordered the coil for a 1984 F150.

I was reading some different stuff online, like the nice write-up below, and my 1984 Factory Service manual to see if I could test the coil with my meter to determine with 100% certainty whether the external resistor was needed or not.

https://www.gomog.com/allmorgan/coiltest.htm

The 1984 Factory service manual gives the following specs to check the coil:

Primary winding ohms: 0.8 - 1.6

Secondary winding ohms: 7,700 - 10,500

When I check my new Spectra coil, it reads 9,600 ohms on the secondary, which is fine, but it reads 4.6 ohms on the primary.

With a reading of 4.6 ohms, it's way off of what the FSM says it should be (if it was the original 1984 Ford coil at least). It seems like it doesn't need the external resistor, but maybe I'm doing something wrong.

Any advice from the Duraspark II knowledge base?

I don't care if it needs the resistor or not, I just want to confirm it somehow. Thanks gents!

[Rembrant]

Gents,

I'll pulled the new DSII wiring harness out of the package today and it prompted me to check my new coil (again) to see if I could determine if it required an external ballast resistor or not. Ideally it is indicated on the outside of the coil, but it is not noted on mine. It's a Spectra Premium C610 coil from RockAuto:

https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=6280596&cc=1121443&pt=7060&jsn=454

Screen snip below. I ordered the coil for a 1984 F150.

I was reading some different stuff online, like the nice write-up below, and my 1984 Factory Service manual to see if I could test the coil with my meter to determine with 100% certainty whether the external resistor was needed or not.

https://www.gomog.com/allmorgan/coiltest.htm

The 1984 Factory service manual gives the following specs to check the coil:

Primary winding ohms: 0.8 - 1.6

Secondary winding ohms: 7,700 - 10,500

When I check my new Spectra coil, it reads 9,600 ohms on the secondary, which is fine, but it reads 4.6 ohms on the primary.

With a reading of 4.6 ohms, it's way off of what the FSM says it should be (if it was the original 1984 Ford coil at least). It seems like it doesn't need the external resistor, but maybe I'm doing something wrong.

Any advice from the Duraspark II knowledge base?

I don't care if it needs the resistor or not, I just want to confirm it somehow. Thanks gents!

Second wiring question...

The brown wire in the diagram below (full 12v+ to coil during starting only). What is the point of having this wire on the "I" terminal of the solenoid? I know what the wire does obviously, but my Bullnose trucks never had a wire on the "I" terminal of the starter solenoid/relay.

The reason I ask is that I already have a starter solenoid/relay, but it's one of the ones that does not have the second "I" terminal. I guess the point of it being on the starter relay is that it gets full battery voltage and does not pass through the main harness into dash and fuse box, etc.

 

[Gary Lewis]

Gents,

I'll pulled the new DSII wiring harness out of the package today and it prompted me to check my new coil (again) to see if I could determine if it required an external ballast resistor or not. Ideally it is indicated on the outside of the coil, but it is not noted on mine. It's a Spectra Premium C610 coil from RockAuto:

https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=6280596&cc=1121443&pt=7060&jsn=454

Screen snip below. I ordered the coil for a 1984 F150.

I was reading some different stuff online, like the nice write-up below, and my 1984 Factory Service manual to see if I could test the coil with my meter to determine with 100% certainty whether the external resistor was needed or not.

https://www.gomog.com/allmorgan/coiltest.htm

The 1984 Factory service manual gives the following specs to check the coil:

Primary winding ohms: 0.8 - 1.6

Secondary winding ohms: 7,700 - 10,500

When I check my new Spectra coil, it reads 9,600 ohms on the secondary, which is fine, but it reads 4.6 ohms on the primary.

With a reading of 4.6 ohms, it's way off of what the FSM says it should be (if it was the original 1984 Ford coil at least). It seems like it doesn't need the external resistor, but maybe I'm doing something wrong.

Any advice from the Duraspark II knowledge base?

I don't care if it needs the resistor or not, I just want to confirm it somehow. Thanks gents!

I see in the Spectra catalog that the C610 is the right coil for an '84 F150. But the EVTM, shown below, says there's a 1.1 ohm resistor in the wiring, so I would expect you to need a ballast resistor.

As for you finding 4.6 ohms on the primary vs the spec of 0.8 - 1.6 ohms, have you checked to see if your DVM shows 0 when you put the leads together? Low resistances are hard to measure and the leads sometimes cause the readings to be off a few ohms.

[Gary Lewis]

Second wiring question...

The brown wire in the diagram below (full 12v+ to coil during starting only). What is the point of having this wire on the "I" terminal of the solenoid? I know what the wire does obviously, but my Bullnose trucks never had a wire on the "I" terminal of the starter solenoid/relay.

The reason I ask is that I already have a starter solenoid/relay, but it's one of the ones that does not have the second "I" terminal. I guess the point of it being on the starter relay is that it gets full battery voltage and does not pass through the main harness into dash and fuse box, etc.

That wiring diagram is for a simple ignition switch, meaning one that doesn't have the different circuit for Start which bypasses the ballast resistor like the Bullnose trucks have. So they use the I terminal, which gets full battery voltage when the relay when it is energized. That effectively bypasses the ballast resistor.

[Rembrant]

As for you finding 4.6 ohms on the primary vs the spec of 0.8 - 1.6 ohms, have you checked to see if your DVM shows 0 when you put the leads together? Low resistances are hard to measure and the leads sometimes cause the readings to be off a few ohms.

Gary, yes sir, I always check and it does read zero with the probes touching.

At the end of the day, it's not a big deal and I'll test it with power on it when I have it all wired up, it's just one of those things that annoys me greatly that it isn't indicated on the outside of the coil one way or another.

 

[Rembrant]

That wiring diagram is for a simple ignition switch, meaning one that doesn't have the different circuit for Start which bypasses the ballast resistor like the Bullnose trucks have. So they use the I terminal, which gets full battery voltage when the relay when it is energized. That effectively bypasses the ballast resistor.

Right. I'm just using a basic dash mounted ignition switch. I'll grab another relay that has both terminals...they're not expensive anyway. Thanks Gary.

[Gary Lewis]

That wiring diagram is for a simple ignition switch, meaning one that doesn't have the different circuit for Start which bypasses the ballast resistor like the Bullnose trucks have. So they use the I terminal, which gets full battery voltage when the relay when it is energized. That effectively bypasses the ballast resistor.

Right. I'm just using a basic dash mounted ignition switch. I'll grab another relay that has both terminals...they're not expensive anyway. Thanks Gary.

I thought you might be.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Second wiring question...

The brown wire in the diagram below (full 12v+ to coil during starting only). What is the point of having this wire on the "I" terminal of the solenoid? I know what the wire does obviously, but my Bullnose trucks never had a wire on the "I" terminal of the starter solenoid/relay.

The reason I ask is that I already have a starter solenoid/relay, but it's one of the ones that does not have the second "I" terminal. I guess the point of it being on the starter relay is that it gets full battery voltage and does not pass through the main harness into dash and fuse box, etc.

This kit is for vehicles being retrofit to DS-II.

Vehicles that had points didn't have the 'hot in start' wire that bypasses the resistance wire found in all our trucks.

The Painless diagram could just join the white (advance) and brown (full current to coil) wire together at 'I', but the key switched bl/r wire isn't going to provide enough current to reliably charge the coil.

As for your coil, it's obviously setup to only work with the DSII horseshoe connector.

There are two functions of the resistor. Minimize overheating of the coil because of all the dwell inherent in DSII and reduce load on the switching transistor in the module.