Dejure
Junior Member
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2025
- Posts
- 18
- Reaction score
- 30
- Location
- Eastern Washington
- First Name
- Kelly
- Truck Year
- 1978
- Truck Model
- C15
- Engine Size
- 350
Back in the day, about forty or so years ago, when my 69 step side was my other baby, I installed capacitive discharge to solve the point burn issue.
Doing so dropped the point amperage from about 7 amps down to 200 milliamps, or about 2/10th of an amp. Since the amperage was so greatly reduced, the points didn't suffer the normal, significant efficiency loss stock points do.
NOW the down side - the capacitive discharge worked so well you tended to forget about the points.
Coming home from work one evening, I pulled out from a stop and my truck started running like crap. I got home and put the dwell meter on the system and discovered the points were nearly closed.
I figured I'd done a crap job of snugging them down, then reset them. The truck ran great, again. Till the next day. Then the dwell closed again, near home, again.
On inspection, it became clear the problem was, the points had lasted so long, the rider block, lube long since played out, had worn to a point a mere few miles took enough off what was left of the points lobes they'd all but close again.
Loved that capacitive discharge. If it went bad, I only had to pull the plug, turn it 90 degrees, to bypass the capacitive discharge, and I could set dwell over be down the road again.
I went with a magnetic pickup anyway.
Doing so dropped the point amperage from about 7 amps down to 200 milliamps, or about 2/10th of an amp. Since the amperage was so greatly reduced, the points didn't suffer the normal, significant efficiency loss stock points do.
NOW the down side - the capacitive discharge worked so well you tended to forget about the points.
Coming home from work one evening, I pulled out from a stop and my truck started running like crap. I got home and put the dwell meter on the system and discovered the points were nearly closed.
I figured I'd done a crap job of snugging them down, then reset them. The truck ran great, again. Till the next day. Then the dwell closed again, near home, again.
On inspection, it became clear the problem was, the points had lasted so long, the rider block, lube long since played out, had worn to a point a mere few miles took enough off what was left of the points lobes they'd all but close again.
Loved that capacitive discharge. If it went bad, I only had to pull the plug, turn it 90 degrees, to bypass the capacitive discharge, and I could set dwell over be down the road again.
I went with a magnetic pickup anyway.
