i have an old carburated 302, and it has no spark. is there a way to check the coil? i know it's getting electric, but how do i check to see if it's working? how do i check to see if the distributor is good?

 

If the distributor is bad it usually is a broken wire right at the pickup coil.
For the coil take a test light and touch it to the neg (-) side of the coil and crank the engine, if it flashes and you get on spark it is bad. If it did not flash more than likely you have a bad Ignition Module unless you have points.

 

Take a testlight or voltmeter and hook the + lead of the testlight or meter to the - of the coil.

Take the - lead of the meter or testlight and hook it to a good ground on the engine block.

Get someone to crank the engine, and the testlight should blink, or the meter should jump on and off. If it doesn't jump, then your points are bad, or possibly your ignition box is bad if you have electronic ignition.

 

what if the coil is bad? will that test still work? is there an easy way to test that?

 

Yes unless the coil is fired (smoked) and then you would more than likely have no power on the pos (+) side of the coil either as a fuse or fuse link would have burned up also.

What year are we talking about?