Need advice on a condenser problem.

[jays58s]

I figured I'd bring up this post since I had the same problem on two different cars now. The first car is a '58 convertible with an Okrasa that I just built for my buddy. It has an 010 restored by Ed Fall, and it had the made in Turkey condenser that took a dump. My car is a '68 with 44k original miles, original Bosch coil dated to the car, an 019 restored by Ed Fall, and it has a condenser from Wolfsburg West that just failed. I messed with my car, and it seemed to be a ground issue on the condenser wire bolt, but then it crapped out again yesterday. I installed a NOS German condenser from Glenn Ring on the 010, it seems fine now, but doesn't get driven often so we'll see if it happens again. I'm currently waiting on a NOS German condenser for my 019 from Glenn, so we'll see how that goes.

[Rustforlife]

Well, I am going to go out on a limb and put this one to rest. The last time I had a failure was March of 2019.
I ended up on the side of the road not 5 miles from home, same symptoms. Swapped out the condenser, fired right up. Went to close the decklid and it stalled out. LOL WTF? No way…. Just no way.. At this point I was ready to light the mf on fire. Looked at the wiring in the vicinity of the dist/coil and found an intermittent break that had finally got to the point that I could see it.
I stripped the wiring on both ends, put a piece of shrink tubing on it and twisted the wires together. Took the lighter to the shrink tubing, fired it up and the engine hasn’t stalled once since then.

*edit* and btw, the .010 is back in it too!
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1956 Ragtop

[mikedjames]

If you had an intermittent wire break, what could be happening is that there is an extra fast current collapse in the coil (not moderated by the condenser) producing a massive voltage spike on the coil primary, that then arcs across the gap.
That high voltage then hits the condenser or any expensive electronics connected to the coil.

It may also temporarily re-weld the break with heat from the arcing.

I had an outboard motor where the coil would flash over from the secondary and this had a similar effect.
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Ancient vehicles and vessels

1974 VW T2 : Devon Eurovette camper with 1641 DP T1 engine, Progressive carb, full flow oil cooler, EDIS crank timed ignition.
Engine 1: 40k miles (rocker shaft clip fell off), Engine 2: 30k miles (rebuild, dropped valve). Engine 3: a JK Preservation Parts "new" engine, aluminium case: 26k miles: new top end.
Gearbox rebuild 2021 by Bears.

1979 Westerly GK24 24 foot racer/cruiser yacht Forethought of Gosport.
1973 wooden Pacer sailing dinghy

[KEGZ]