Wow what a great forum - wish i found it years ago!

Ok my problem is this - 95 TS Magna Station Wagon auto
Yesterday afternoon my wife stopped the car to open the gate at the front of our property, she left the car running and not long after she got out the engine stalled. This is not uncommon and usually happened with the A/C running. She opened the gate, got back in to start the car - no go.
I came down and the car didn't even sound like it wanted to start.

Felt the fuel rail whilst cranking, pulsing nicely.
Took out Spark plug, could definately smell unburnt fuel, earthed S/P no spark whilst cranking.
Put spark plug directly onto coil lead - no spark whilst cranking.
Measured voltage on the 2 pin connector at front of coil - 12 volts with ignition switch on.
Measured primary coil resistance on the 2 pin connector - 1.6 Ohms
Put multimeter across HT probe on coil and Chassis earth - Open circuit

Is this enough to assume the coil is fried or are these modern day 'transformer type' coils different from the older 'oil type'?
Have been quoted $130 for new coil so I want to be sure I am replacing the faulty part.
Has anyone measured the coil resistance in this way? I may be barking up the wrong tree, it may be a trigger fault. Any advise, experiences, additional tests appreciated

Coil looks a bit like the one on the right at this bosch link
http://apps.bosch.com.au/products/saa/ignition_coils.pdf

Your primary seems OK, your secondary should NOT be open circuit to ground. A couple of K ohms, but open circuit... Dead.

Pretty safe bet, you could always see if it is getting voltage to the primary.

The only difference between these type and the old style ones is the insulation is better (but not infalible) and the saturation current and output voltage is higher IIRC (to get better spark).

I've run those little buggers past 120Kv on occasion with no problems.

Cheers
Heath Young

You are the most valuable member on this forum by far heathyoung :)

Thanx heaps for your input Heathyoung;

I found a guy that will ship me a 2nd hand one up from melbourne all for for $20, atleast its a cheaper way if it turns out I'm wrong.
Thanks again.
Found another informative thread which suggested that cleaning out the PVC valve on the rocker cover may help with my idle cutout problem. Mine was clogged up like jar of vegemite so thanks to that poster too.

Just for reference in case someone else has the same problem. Don't take any notice of the service manual when it says your coil secondary resistance should be 12.6k +/- 20%. My replacement coil had 8.6k and this is the norm. The real culprit was the power transistor module which sits next to the coil on the TS,TR. The equivalent circuit in the service manual displays this as a normal pnp transistor - this is also incorrect as you cannot diode test it with a multi-meter like a regular transistor. I only came to check it when my replacement coil came with power transistor attached to it and it had a big difference in resistance between pins 1 & 3 compared with the one fitted to my car. Plugged in the spare one and bingo - up she sparks. My local auto elec was adament it was the dizzy assy and he wanted $240 plus labour, so I was happy to sort it it out for $20 and abit of trial & error.