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HI, I have rebuilt the engine and attached all the hardware. There are 2 wires that are not attached to anything:

One comes out of something that looks like a "C" battery and sits next to the starter coil, the wire is about 4 inches long, about 20 gauge and has a female 'blade type' end on it. Any ideas?

The other looks even more important, it comes from the alternator it is about 8 gauge and is a red cable. It looks like it should go to the battery but I have no record of it comming from there. Can you help?

I can supply pictures if that would help.

Thanks for your help.

The large one on the alternator (connects to the alternator on a "stud" that is sticking up on the alternator) sounds like the wire that should connect to the starter...same terminal the battery connects to. It would be perfectly fine to connect it to the battery (+) of course as its electrically the same point.

As for the other one, not sure. You mention starter coil? Are you talking about the starter solenoid? This item that looks like a "C" battery...does it look like a large condensor?

Thanks for your response Drake.

Here are some pics of that mystery device:




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Thats the condensor, usually mounted to the distributor and connected to the points. Could also be connected to the same terminal on the coil that the points are connected to.

Drake

Anonymous wrote:Thats the condensor...

Well, it's A condenser (capacitor) but not necessarily the ignition condenser - if there's one on the distributor, this one is something that was added (probably for radio noise suppression) in which case it isn't vital to the operation of the engine - and should be connected to somewhere else if at all. If you connect it in parallel to the "normal" ignition condenser you may end up with excessive capacitance and a weak spark.
-Marc