1989 Columbia - smoking throttle cable???

[Cartmaster]

It's possible the green wire touching ground caused an overvoltage at the igniter and cooked it! Just follow what the others are suggesting.

[buddsy92]

Original issue was only getting spark after releasing gas

I created the second issue by rummaging through all the wiring, I must’ve pushed the green wire aside and made it touch the battery tray. This was sending voltage through the throttle cable I guess, making it get hot.

So I think the original issue is separate from that ??

I’m pulling out my hair here, I have limited knowledge of these things, let alone electrical!

[Lochlin]

Separate issues for sure. Ignition components usually fail because of too much current in the ignition circuit. Those carts are supposed to have ignition coils that have 3-4 ohms of resistance in them. Most people don't realize that and use coils that don't have that much resistance and ignition modules burn up as result. Anything involving a fuel pump and such wouldn't impact that.

These carts are antiques at this point. Stuff goes bad.

[buddsy92]

Lochlin -

I followed your recommendations on testing through each of the sections (pic attached)

My question to you is…

When I test the input wire on micro switch, it’s 12.22V.
Then I test the output side and it’s 10.2V (note that it’s 12.22V with the wire disconnected)
Then I test the + on the coil and it’s 9V


Would you suspect micro switch to be the issue?

[buddsy92]

Ok so I figured out the problem - for anyone else that may be reading this now or in the future -

Symptoms:
Small spark only when letting off the gas pedal
When using multimeter - I had the black (negative) in a crevice on the frame and put the red (positive) onto the + terminal on the ignition coil. Here you should be getting 12v but I was getting 8-9V which people said was the ignition control module (thanks Lochlin)

Perhaps I was lucky but what I did was remove the metal screen on the fan housing, take off the oil pump, and get a good look at the ignition module. Everything looked good and clean but I took a 1/2 inch socket and gave it a few love taps. Tried turning it over again and voila, spark had fully returned.

Perhaps this module will fail soon but this helped me narrow down my issue and brought my girl back to life (even if it’s temporary) and I can now confidently buy the points or HEI conversion to get it back to normal

Thanks everyone for their input!!!!

[Lochlin]

Awesome!

Make sure that you have some resistance in that ignition circuit to help keep that module sparking. The need is described in the "ignition module" sticky.