Shutdown1

Happy holidays and thanks for reading. I just took the cap off my Mallory ignition coil (trying to pull my broken coil wire through) and spilled about half the oily fluid out when the cap finally broke loose. Can somebody tell me what I need to replace the spilled fluid with? Never had this happen before. Many thanks and nice meeting you on the forum.

'74 Turbocharged 350, "Molested to Perfection," class of 71

Green76

Shutdown1,

If it was my coil I would replace it with a new one, if oil is leaking out then there is something wrong with it.
I have no idea what type of oil is used either, but I'm 99% sure it's not motor oil...
Ulf

Chris69

PCB is (was?) used for transformer oil and also in capacitors and other electrical equipment. Don't know if that's what's in your coil, but if it is, it's considered hazardous to humans and the environment. They may not even make that stuff anymore. Dunno.

marky mark

I had a new Mallory Chrome coil do the same thing to me. Their tech rep said you could first try & remove all the oil in the plug "inlet" and then tighten the screw at the bottom of the inlet as the oil is retained by an o-ring under the screw. I elected to replace it with an MSD Blaster II chrome unit that I'm happy with.

Short answer... coil is defective.

Regards, Mark :flag :chevy

Shutdown1

....Thanks everybody for your help. I still wish I could just identify that fluid in the coil and replace it. There was nothing wrong with the coil; only my coil wire broke off when I tried to pull it out and I had to take the cap off to get the broken end of the coil wire out. May end up buying a new coil, but if someone can put me on to a fix I would appreciate it. Regards

'74 Turbocharged 350, "Molested to Perfection," class of '71

63Banshee

A generic high voltage mineral oil is used in ignition coils for insulation and cooling. You could use a specific transformer oil like Diala-AX or contact the manufacturer for the specific type in your coil, but I imagine your time is worth more then 40 bucks. Besides, are you sure it won’t leak now that it has been taken apart?

Techno

I use linseed oil in my home built capacitors. These are high voltage high capacity. Some people have built them out of a 4" pvc pipe 4' long to give an idea of the size.
Mine are rated at 30-40 Kv and are several farads each. The teflon dielectric is what gives the volt rating not the oil.
If you use this, change the oil so its all compatible.
We use a transformer oil at work I can check on, but I don't know where you would get it from.
There should be no PCBs in anything new today. They discovered their mistake and now don't use it.

Shutdown1

...... Thanks again guys, this time Banshee and Techno. Looks like I am just going to trash my Mallory and put another coil in the car so I can drive it this weekend. I appreciate the information on the coil oil, and if I can find it locally next week I may try to put my Mallory back together. Thanks again to everybody who posted, and take care for the holidays.

'74 Turbocharged 350, "Molested to Perfection," class of '71

rainman69

Do I dare ask what you're using those caps for? Goodness, they're HUGE!! :smash:

427V8

Yea really Techno, what are they for???. I was thinking Stiffining caps for a stero but not with that voltage rating!

Techno

Tesla Coil.
You feed the caps with around 10 KV to 20 KV and this powers a couple turn primary. A simple spark gap switch switchs the power.
The secondary is an air wound coil that resonates like a bell This is how it steps the volts not the turn ratio.

The output is around 350 KV and 400K hertz. Depends on the coil you wound.
It does neat things like make flourescent tubes glow and put out large sparks. Or purple streamers. I've put a spark plug wire on it and the whole thing glowed from leakage.
Fun little spark toy.
You can also use the caps to store energy, thats what they're doing in this case.
The biggest one I know of to be built put out 14 million volts. They did a demo at a horse track. This one was commercialy sponsered and huge.

BTW the coil and capaciter in a distributer is used as a crude tesla coil.
Try taking the cap out, your car won't start.

marky mark

Shutdown, re-read your post and didn't realize that you had taken the cap off and then the oil spilled out. Mine actually had oil come up into the top where the plug wire that connects to the dist. goes. Sorry for confusion.

Regards, Mark :flag :chevy

Shutdown1

That's OK, MM, thanks for reponding. Sounds like your coil overheated, whereas I just dropped mine. I couldn't lay my hands on any of that oil they use inside the coil, so I just bought a new one. All this started just because I couldn't get the coil wire out of the coil! Bought the Accel Supercoil, and darn if I don't think it made a difference in how smooth the engine runs. Maybe things worked out for the better this time; now if I can just mount it on my firewall so it won't fall off! Kind Regards and seasons greetings!


'74 Turbocharged 350 "Molested to Perfection," class of '71