AAR Problem just got worse - please help!!!

[dlewis007]

Greetings. Thanks to all the concerned and empathetic souls out there who provided sound advice and encouragement for the stubborn air regulator that wouldn't come apart.

I removed the AAR and decided that instead of prying it apart (which seemed impossible) I ground the edges of the flange away with my roto-zip, and the thing came right apart. Everything inside actually looked pretty clean, and I lubed up the valve a little extra just to be sure it turned properly. I then attached it to a 12V source (per the recommendations below), and sure enough the coils at the bottom began to get warm. I couldn't understand why the AAR didn't function properly if everything worked so well. I decided to make sure that the 12V connection to the coil was working adequately, and I connected just the bottom part of the AAR "can" to the connector on the coil -- needless to say nothing happened. I tested the connection with voltmeter, and it read 11.9V.

Here's where things went wrong. One of the connectors on the coil powers the tach, and I unplugged that lead, and attached the AAR there to see if it would get hot. Almost immediately, smoke started billowing from the connector that goes to the distributor. I immediately unplugged the AAR, but alas, it was too late. When I tried starting the car, the starter turned over, but the car refused to start. I'm not sure what to do now.

Here are my questions:

1) The coil has four leads coming off of it -- are they all 12V, and where should they all connect to? (Distributor, tach, AAR, and what else -- my fourth post is empty).
2) Is there a good diagram of this anywhere?
3) What did the smoke mean? Is this is as simple as replacing the wire to the distributor, or did I fry something else? Why would this happen in the first place?
4) I put the AAR back together, but am uncertain what the next step is. It works when connected to the battery recharger, but not on the coil.

Any insights on how to get my car started again, and what to do about the AAR would be a life-saver.

Novicely,

Daniel

[Jim Smolka]

First, the AAR was not orginally connected to the coil. It has a seperate connector near the dizzy.

Look in the Haynes manual for a wiring diagram. You will see the orginal way the AAR and coil was connected from the factory.

To test the AAR, connect a battery to it. Blow air through it. As the AAR heats up, the flow of air should decrease.

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

Sounds like you may have fried something in the wire that powers the coil.

The coil has three different connections on it. One is the center "tower" that has the really FAT black wire that goes to the distributor cap. The other two are labeled "1" and "15". They are also labeled "-" and "+". The medium-fat black wire that provides power to the coil plugs into (+). The green wire from the points, and the thin black-with-purple stripe (the stripe can be hard to see) both connect to the terminals on the (-) side.

The AAR, as previously noted, should connect to a different wire in the wiring harness that runs to the coil/oil pressure switch/etc. This white wire connects to the relay board, into the same circuit that powers the fuel pump.

--DD

[JP Noonan]

The aar is on the same circut as the feul pump, a bad AAR I had kept blowing the pump fuse. Drove me nuts.

Anyway, I guess you hooked up +12v to the neg side of the coil. This is the side that has a green wire to the dizzy (condesor) and a blk/purple wire that goes to the tach. The other side is the pos side and goes to the key. The heating eliment is theAAR acks as a dead short, like the cig lighter.

Pop off the dist cap and see if you fried the points. The small wire that goes from the points to the condensor should have a blk covering. If so I'd replace both the condensor and the points.

Look closely at the terminals of the coilk, they are labeled +/- and 1 and 15, I forget which is which.

By the way when I re-wired my engine harness I did the same thing so don't feel too bad.