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Mon Nov 24, 2008 9:24 am

There is nothing wrong with NOS and used Mallory distributors. They are very easy to disassemble, clean and reassemble.

In fact I think that is is mandatory to disassemble any vacuum advance Mallory distributor to make sure that the pivot pin for the vacuum advance is properly staked to the advance plate. You can only do that if you disassemble the distributor.

Just make sure that you mark which side each advance spring was on.

Scott Novak

Mon Nov 24, 2008 2:32 pm

mine kept blowing optical pickups. finally sent it back.

Mon Nov 24, 2008 2:37 pm

I liked my MSD, then I didn't for a while, and now I like it again...

Mon Nov 24, 2008 2:39 pm

74vwbaja wrote: mine kept blowing optical pickups. finally sent it back.
That was because you kept over-voltaging the module if I remember correctly. Weren't you the one that had the module blow when you connected a battery charger?

You can easily send fairly high voltage spikes and surges through the electrical system in your car. Anything voltage sensitive can blow. Most car stereo equipment has enough internal filtering that this is not a problem. But there isn't enough room inside an ignition module to add the appropriate filtering, so an external filter is necessary.

What a lot of people don't realize is that the Unilite requires a power filter to run reliably.

Scott Novak

Mon Nov 24, 2008 2:41 pm

yes i replaced it after that and added a power filter to it and it still blew without the charger hooked up. I will never run anything that blows when you hook up a small .75 amp trickle charger

Mon Nov 24, 2008 2:45 pm

74vwbaja wrote: yes i replaced it after that and added a power filter to it and it still blew without the charger hooked up. I will never run anything that blows when you hook up a small .75 amp trickle charger

There appears to be a problem with the Mallory power filters. I've been trying to confirm this.

When you replaced the Unilite module, did you coat the underside of the module with thermally conductive grease?

Scott Novak

Mon Nov 24, 2008 3:54 pm

junior55 wrote: I liked my MSD, then I didn't for a while, and now I like it again...

:lol:

Mon Nov 24, 2008 4:27 pm

yes just like the instructions said.

Mon Nov 24, 2008 4:35 pm

74vwbaja wrote: yes i replaced it after that and added a power filter to it and it still blew without the charger hooked up. I will never run anything that blows when you hook up a small .75 amp trickle charger

Which ignition coil were you using?

Do you know what the total amount of ballast resistance there was with any external ballast resistor and the primary resistance of the ignition coil?

Scott Novak

Mon Nov 24, 2008 4:42 pm

If anyone has a dead Unilite module, that they cannot return under warranty, that failed for no apparent reason, I would very much like to get my hands on it to do a failure analysis.

I'd also like to get my hands on any Unilite modules that died while someone was arc welding on the chassis.

If you have one of these please e-mail me.

Scott Novak

[email protected]

Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:01 pm

it was a flamethrower 3.0ohm I was told by a couple people that it would work

Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:15 pm

74vwbaja wrote: it was a flamethrower 3.0 ohm I was told by a couple people that it would work

That should have worked with no problem at all. Being a 3 ohm primary resistance, the current through the Unilite would only have been 1/2 or what it was capable of handling and it should have run cooler.

Did you ever measure the Flamethrower ignition coil primary resistance to make sure it was 3.0 ohms?

There is always the possibility that you received a mismarked Flamethrower 2 coil with a 0.6 ohm primary resistance.

Where did you connect the brown ground wire from the Unilite wire harness?

Pardon all of the questions, but I'm looking into why some of these Unilite modules fail with no apparent reason. Since you had two fail for no apparent reason I'm very curious.

Scott Novak

Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:25 pm

oh no problem Scott. I wish someone can figure out the issues. I did not measure it but it was new and the box was marked three ohms and so was the sticker on the coil, not saying that they did not miss label it from the factory. The brown wire, if i remember right was the ground, was hooked up to a case halve bolt first off like aircooled.net email suggested, but it did not seem to be grounding so then I hooked it up to a body ground after that. One thing that I remember when I was messing with it was that I tried the troubleshooting tips from mallory's website, they mentioned something like using a credit card to block the pickup and see if you got a voltage drop at one side of the coil. I tried that with both pickup units and go no drop in voltage. I think that they might be just bad units from the factory. I dont know. I am just an autobody repair man, not the electrical wizard. I will let you figure it out Scott. Good luck.

Tue Nov 25, 2008 6:54 pm

well I am glad I chose old school Bosch 010 instead of the Mallory after all :)

Wed Nov 26, 2008 9:19 am

74vwbaja wrote: I did not measure it but it was new and the box was marked three ohms and so was the sticker on the coil

Do you still have the Flamethrower coil or did you return that also?

Scott Novak

Wed Nov 26, 2008 9:23 am

Still nothing from Mallory.

How do they expect us to take them seriously if they won't maintain contact?

Wed Nov 26, 2008 10:14 am

Well if you noticed the guy only signed up for the forum to make that one post and hasnt been back. He probably thinks hes' put you in your place and no other contact is necessary. That's the problem with customer service anymore. Also there are very few things made to last anymore. Everything is made with its replacement in mind, not its quality.

Wed Nov 26, 2008 10:27 am

Quote: Well if you noticed the guy only signed up for the forum to make that one post and hasnt been back.
Yep.
Quote: He probably thinks hes' put you in your place and no other contact is necessary

If thats what he believes, then he is absolutely incorrect.

Wed Nov 26, 2008 10:31 am

Maybe give him the benefit of the doubt that they are out on vacation for the holidays.

Regardless, he should have PM'd you or contacted you after making his post if their company was really interested in hearing about your problems and concerns so they could improve the quality of their product. I find it interesting that an employee from a major company would leave a post on a forum without leaving his/her contact information.

Wed Nov 26, 2008 11:01 am

I also wondered why their was no title, or information posted so I could contact this person.

Who knows, he may not even be a Mallory rep, he may be a Mallory distributor thats tired of losing sales because of this post and others like it.

Perhaps its time to do some digging.