Thanks Ross! It makes sense that the 2nd schematic is incorrect. The coil is wired wrong as such. As I understand it, the actual vehicle ground polarity, whether positive or negative ground doesn't matter. Just that the points are connected to the common leg connection.

The coil manufacturers could have saved everybody a lot of trouble by simply marking the common leg terminal "To Points" and the other one "Power".

 

Ted, on the analog voltmeter, says highest voltage setting, in my case would be 500, would I select 500dc volts or 500ac volts?

 

Throwing caution to the wind, I hooked up an Actron 18 volt combination Dwell/Tach/Voltmeter; a thin jumper wire to the coil receptacle and snaked it under the boot. When cranked the needle barely budged. Not sure why the meter needle doesn't peg with 10k volts, but it doesn't. Just plenty enough to see a positive direction swing of the needle. DC, since they want the positive leg connected to ground, the negative to the coil tower. Try it on the highest setting first, may have to back it down incrementally to see an indication.

 

VOMs are rated in ohms per volt. The higher the value, the better the meter (in some respects). They are that way to minimize the flow thru the meter, which potentially affects the circuit you're measuring. A decent VOM will be 50,000 ohms/volt. So the coil may see the spark plug gap as a lower resistance than the meter.

I'd vote for the AC range on your VOM, 3TR.

 

I figured it was something along those lines, knowing virtually nobody has 20k volt capable VOMs laying around.

I tried reversing the leads (It's a DC meter) and only got a positive swing in the needle when connected as described in the diagram, the test sure seems to work as advertised.

 

Sorry for the ruckus. My coil is wired correctly. It's a NOS Holley and is labeled dist and batt. The engine on the stand is not however so I will be reversing it.

JB