Ever seen a 12v relay put out 6 volts on one pin ?

[fastfredracing]

I have this guy who builds early beetles . I always get to finish up all the little stuff, usually whatever wiring he cannot figure out, fire the motors, adjust everything, and make them road reads as best as I can . Make it all work ....
Finally fired his 61 last Friday . It started right up , spit out 2.5 quarts of oil before I noticed, then failed to restart. Scared me , I thought It blew up !
Anyhow, engine builder, left out an oil galley plug. Easy fix, but took a while to clean up all the oil all that spewed over the brand spankin' new, and clean engine bay.
I go to figure out why it wont start, and the coil burns my hand when I tried to unplug it . Checking all the terminals, the + side was only seeing 6v. I am 100 % sure there was 12 v there when I originally checked it . It is a 12 v coil He did not have any of this wiring connected when I started on the car
The rest of the car has 12 v everywhere. It is a 6 v car converted to 12v, so I was perplexed for a minute trying to figure out if someone purposely left/ or made one 6v circuit ,
The relay powers , I trace it all out, and the relay powers only the ignition circuit ie. coil only .
The relay looked old ,and german, but when I popped it open, it is new and cheap looking inside . Nothing to clean , or manipulate in there at all . Just a standard 3 prong square relay . I think it was rated at 10 a
Think it failed, and is only able to out put 6 volts now ? Strange that it is exactly 6v .
I grabbed an old GM fuel pump relay out of my 5 gallon bucket of misc stuff, plugged it an, and the car starts and runs normally again, 12 v now present at the coil and it no longer gets hot .
I think he was having some trouble trying to wire up the ignition, as he specifically asked me about the coil, and distributor connections when he dropped it off, and they were all disconnected . Maybe he zapped it , or shorted it somehow?
I will post up a pic, in the morning, this thing is sweet ! Big bore motor with a 911 type pea shooter muffler , it sounds really healthy .

[john70t]

I first thought the coil was shorted but the relay swap changed that.

I'm guessing the old relay you pulled out had the same prongs to fit but didn't have the same output.
What should have been ground was hot.
Maybe the 12V side was getting 12V but the ground side was getting 6V??
A bit confused here.

Just a bit surprised the wires didn't burn up first...before the coil getting hot.

[T77911S]

are talking about 6v on the +side of the coil?

check the resistance of the coil.

[1990C4S]

It sounds like you have a voltage drop across a poor contact set on the relay.

I would have measured the voltage drop across the contacts.