Ballast / Non Ballast Coils - Again! Options

[IainR]

Sorry if this subject has been flogged to death, but I'm a bit confused.

My car is/was a 1986 City 1000, but its been fitted with a pre 1980 Clubman 1098 engine so it straddles the 1982/83 chang over period.

Looking at other posts here, I'll check the coil resistance tonight to see what I've got, although there are 3 wires, 2 to one terminal

But I was tidying up loose wires a while back and I noticed a cable running through a section of the loom with the coil on one end and a long length of cable attached to the other end. To tidy things up I connected the long wire direct to the coil but I am now wondering have I bypassed the ballast resistor which will lead to my coil failing?

Would it be best to change to a 12V coil as someone on here stated his loom melted when the ballast resistor wire overheated.

Any advice appreciated, thanks.

This post has been edited by IainR: Mar 9 2010, 02:30 PM

[Ethel]

Some looms do have an unused & unballasted wire tucked away in them - it'll be plain white.

If you have the ballasted coil off the original engine ,and it worked fine, just use that with the white/pink & white/yellow wires on the +ve terminal as before.

[Cooperman]

If in doubt, fit a 12 v coil and a new white wire from ignition switch to coil. Then you know it's OK. Avoid the 'pink' resistance wire like the plague as if it burns out it takes half the front loom with it and hours of work to repair (been there, done that - more than once!).