>On Fri, 8 Jan 1999, Seth C. Bruggeman wrote:
>
>> Well, thanks to everyone's input (esp. Yau-Man who provided the exact coil
>> checking method I was looking for), I traced my troubles to a bad coil,
>> replaced the offending part, and am now back on the road.  One last
>> question, though...am I treating a symptom of a greater problem?  In other
>> words, why would the coil go bad?  I realize the bad coil covered a lot of
>> miles, but coils seem like the kind of part that goes bad generally for
>> reasons other than mechanical failure.  Any ideas...???
>>
>> Seth B.
>> '84 Westy
>>
>   My bet is that you have platimun plug in the engine. They
>killed coil after coil in My 1980 Van until I put 2 and 2 together.
>
>                                            Eric

I respectfully disagree with this diagnosis. A bad coil wire, on the other
hand, might cause the insulation in the coil to break down.

In terms of electrical properties, one hunk of ceramic and metal with a
spark gap behaves very much like another, provided it's shaped the same.

Joshua Van Tol -- jjvantol@uswest.net