looking at the engine bay i found the little round external ballast resistor on the coil to be disconnected and just sitting there disintegrating with rust. is there a replacement for this off the shelf?
will it make a difference to keep running without it?
engine is running fine at the moment.
this is a range rover classic 1990
distributor coil resistor ???
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rezdiver
- Master Cylinder
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Greg S
- Spanner Man
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The resistor basically reduces the voltage going to the item, in this case, the coil. Generally they are about a 7 volt coil IIRC and the resistor reduces you operating voltage to allow it to not overheat. With the resistor disconnected, it might overheat with time, unless someone put a 12 V coil in place and left the resistor dangling.
The thought behind it is that to get a good spark when starting, the resistor is by-passed with the key in the start position, allowing full voltage or higher to the coil when the battery is dragged down due to the load of the starter. A really big spark to get things fired off, then when the key goes back to the run position, the coil operates on it's proper 7V, cool running voltage, and all is right with the world.
The thought behind it is that to get a good spark when starting, the resistor is by-passed with the key in the start position, allowing full voltage or higher to the coil when the battery is dragged down due to the load of the starter. A really big spark to get things fired off, then when the key goes back to the run position, the coil operates on it's proper 7V, cool running voltage, and all is right with the world.