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Tue Mar 08, 2005 7:15 pm

It is probably a stupid question, but I was trying to check the dwell on my 6volt beetle with a snap-on digital multimeter. The only setting on it is for the amount of cylinders not voltage when in dwell mode. It was giving me readings in the 90's. When I checked with a .016 feeler gauge, it was correct. So, am i to assume that the meter is doubling the dwell reading because it is figuring it is 12v? Then setting it at say 90 would be the correct setting of 45? Any help would be great.

Paul

Tue Mar 08, 2005 7:21 pm

I'm not sure what the math is with your meter/readings, but a 12v instrument can't work accurately with a a 6v power supply. Just power the meter witha 12v battery and hook the dwell trigger to your coil. That should be accurate.

Tue Mar 08, 2005 7:22 pm

I use my 12v dwell/tach meter on my 6v car by hooking the + cable directly to the generator. This way it gets more than 6v. It reads correctly.

If you do this, don't rev the engine since you might burn up the meter.

Sounds like you have the "# of cylinders" set wrong

Tue Mar 08, 2005 7:57 pm

the meter has it's own power via 4 AA. Maybe I am just doing something wrong. I just got this meter and I have never used one before. I thought I had it hooked up right.

Wed Mar 09, 2005 11:31 am

dwell is another word for duty cycle, but it's measured in degrees of distributor rotation... i'm not sure that the operating voltage of the car would affect that.

check to see the engine idle speed is at the factory setting, and that you have 4 cylinders selected on the meter... i think you have to do the measurement across the coil terminal and ground? worst case, call snap-on tech support... in a perfect world, the correct dwell measurement is more important that the point gap settings.

Wed Mar 09, 2005 12:03 pm

Connections for a dwell angle meter are distributor side of the coil and ground. If it has a power supply wire, it would go to the + side of the coil or equivalent.

Wed Mar 09, 2005 9:54 pm

Thanks for the reponses. Isn't the dwell angle relative to the point gap? So if my point gap is off, that would effect my timing right. Slowly but surely I'll figure all this out. Thanks for you help.

Paul

Wed Mar 09, 2005 10:45 pm

Sometimes I've had meters not want to read dwell on 6V systems but they usually do OK. On those times when my meter wouldn't work, I have an old analog tach/dwell meter that works good.

andy