Mallory failure, Optical sensor Options

[jeffdon]

Looks like I fried the optical sensor in my Mallory. Did some timing work, shut it down, then went out a few hours later to go for a drive. No spark. Put my old 009 with pertronix back in and its running.

Questions -

1) I have a bosch blue coil, and its measuring 3 ohms pos to neg, and 8k coil wire to either neg or pos. This seems a little low. Could it have been the cuplrit in killing my dizzy?

2) From what I have read, the blue coil has an internal resistor. Would adding a ballast resistor provide additional protection to the Mallory(once fixed) or would it just run like crap?

[Mark Henry]

I've ran a few mallory's with a pertronix module, works good.
You can refit a old red cap points mallory with a pertronix. Way better than a 009, made in USA and cheaper than a new china mallory.

Another way to skin the cat is a red cap points mallory and a MSD, with this method the points are then a low volt trigger and they will never wear out.