Today I had my car started and running to do some adjustments to the carb. While running it died so I tried to start it back up and it would crank but not fire, and while I was doing this I noticed some smoke and it was the resistor wire to the coil. It had melted through the elec. tape that held it together with the other wires. After I noticed that I did not try to start the car back up but I did turn the key to run and the wire started to smoke again. I changed nothing since the last couple times I have had it running and was just looking for some suggestions on where to start first with my troubleshooting.

 

Are you running an original points and condenser type distributor? That required resistance wire, electronic (such as HEI) wants a clean 12 volt source.

 

I am running a points eliminator kit, the installation instructions called for leaving the stock resistance wire. This is only about the 5th or 6th time the car has been started and run since I got it. Before that it had been sitting and not run for about 5 years. I was tracing the resistor wire a couple min. ago and where it passes through the firewall there was some electrical tape around the base, I pulled that back and bare wire was exposed which I am sure is not good. I am going to pull the firewall connection apart tomorrow and see if someone pieced some stuff together in there back in the day.