I just spent half an hour in the dark and cold trying to at least get my old coil and the bracket (rivets? what the...) it's mounted in out so I could take it inside where it's warm and go from there, and when I started removing the mount from the back of the alternator to take off something else so I get yet another part off to gain access to something else, etc, etc, and the bolt wouldn't budge I started screaming at it. What was wrong with those morons to put the coil in like that. If anyone knows an easier way to change out coils( I got the blaster GM coil to replace it, so it'll fit right in) please let me know. What I see out there is stupid. It'll take all day just to change a f... (oops, almost slipped) coil. I already managed to break some little plastic vaccum line where it goes into a rubber joint with 3 other lines. In *** and superglue we trust.
I'm also depressed with the sinking feeling that when I get the new coil in I'll still have the problem ever since today when someone mentioned it could be a vaccum leak and from what it sounds like it might be a head.
I'm still waiting on some better plug wires before I go through the fun of installing the ignition control
Anyway, any tips on replacing a coil would be appreciated (if there are any tips to tell).

my head hurts too

 

Okay, relax. I did my coil in my 86 camaro in no time at all. The bolts were small if I recall. I think it took like half and hour tops to swap in and out the old and new MSD Coil. THe coild was nice, it helped, but tossing new plugs in at that times gives it a little more kick. Consider opening your plug gaps just a hiar more. If stock is .47 go with .48 or .49 tops... No real reason to go to .5 unless your running the 6a box too....

 

I don't mean to sound dumb, but i take it the coil is that thing on the passenger side of the engine?

 

Yep thats right, it hard to get it off i'm in the miidle of getting it off right now.

 

Yet another reason to get a regular Blaster coil, or another kind of external mount coil- you can leave the original where it is (as a backup), and don't have to worry about removing it!

To make life a bit easier (depending on rust), you could remove the whole coil/EGR solenoid/EGR test switch bracket from the exhaust manifold. Then you could take care of the coil on your workbench, instead of screwing around in that tight spot on the car.

 

When I did my swap I didn't mess with the bracket at all. The original coil is riveted to the bracket so I just used a Dremel to grind off the heads of the rivets. To install the new coil I used the bolts and nuts that were supplied. I was in no big hurry and it took me only about 20 minutes. I guess the Dremel is the key to making to job easy. If you don't have one, then go buy one. Most people I've talked to about Dremels don't know how they lived without one. Good luck.

 

I took a small flat head screw driver, small enough that head is like a blade, and hammered the screw driver right through th e rivets. The other dumb *** thing about this setup is that the rivets on mine were solid, but at lest they were a soft rivet. This took me about 30 min to get all our off. It did the 2 top ones first so that could wiggle the coil out. Then with the coil out of the way I did the last 2 bottoms ones in.

After doing this I swore that if I ever met the %$#^ that designed that mounting system I would beat him severly! I'm sure you might feel the same way.

 

Yea, I thought for a minute about using a screwdriver to drive into the gap, but I didn't think I could get one to fit. Guess I'll try it though. Probably should get a dremel too. I had such a bad day yesterday plus a headache and was getting so frustrated after that hose broke off that I couldn't hardly think straight. Gonna wait till Saturday and move the operation someplace warm with light too. I just hope it's the coil, I'll find out I guess.
Brian K, thanks, you answered another question I was thinking about asking about the plug gap since I'm putting in an MSD 6A plus the blaster coil. I'm putting in some 8.5 wires also.
I might even look around at work this afternoon and see if I can find something to just make my own bracket to mount it to.
Thanks

 

You could also buy a stone for a dremel (or, more specifically, an air die grinder = larger), put it in an electric drill, and grind the rivets away- it'll take a lonnng time tho.

 

i used a cold chisel to take the rivet heads off, then poked em out of the coil with a punch. took 2 mins

 

Do we have HEI ignition?

 

Sure do! We can even use the V8 spark module (in the distributor)- it's the same part for V6's or V8's (tho you'll just see 'em advertised for V8 TPI's).

 

Sweet! Thanks! I've been looking at MSD stuff, saw GM HEI and thought "hmmmm...." I looked at my coil and it looked like an HEI one. I just thought I'd make sure though.

 

When my ignition Module went out in my 92 I thought it was the coil. It took me maybe 10 minutes to undo the bolts and swap(to confirm it was/ or not the coil) in the external coil from my 91 305. I believe it was 2 10mm bolts. I thought they were pretty easy to get to and remove. And the HEI in distrib type coils I have been told WILL NOT work with out external coil system. The plug inputs are different.

 

A spark coil is a spark coil. Why you would put an internal HEI on an external HEI system (like our cars) is beyond me, but it's possible. You can wire a Blaster 2 coil to our HEI ignitions and it will work. If a spark coil has two wires coming out of it, it'll wire to our systems. The internal HEI coil would sure look ugly hanging there, though!

 

OK, that was fairly painless. Cold chisel, hammer, and a screwdriver got the coil out easy. The hard part was getting one of the new nuts and bolts together while putting the new one in. I think the car is now officially fixed. Runs fine now, although the throttle response seems a little slow when I take off. Also put in a new distributer cap, rotor, and O2 sensor. I really need to just get a whole new distributer though, cuz it was a bit rusty when I pulled the cap off. I cleaned it the best I could.

 

If you pull the distributor out and replace the stator / pick up coil and just use a fine grit sand papaer one the rest of the rusty spots it will be cheaper then buying a new distributor.

 

Actually when I said (a bit rusty), what I really meant was (looking like a science project rusty). I think I will pull it out though and try rebuilding it.

 

Yeah that is the way mine was when I rebuilt it, and it worked just fine. In fact the car seemed to respond a bit better.

 

Haha this is a funny topic. I wanted to change my coil last year, and well all the sudden my car stopped working. Little did I know after I had it towed to the Chevy dealer to fix it that it was the coil. They did the hard work for me although it would not have been that hard to do it myself. My dad told me that ignition coils never go bad HAHA yeah riiigght. I knew it was going bad cause I got water in it when testing something on my engine for a leak. Pssssh well a little while after having Chevy put on a new coil and $371 later and poor, I put in a MSD GM Blaster coil But I think my way sucked to change the coil, but funny perhaps to others.

 

You can't buy a new distributor for our V6's. You can only rebuild them.

 

A quick search on the Kregan website found a couple of stock replacments.

http://www.partsamerica.com/SelectPa...or=Distributor