Coil wiring stock 6 volt

[rotorwrench]

A volt meter will give you resistance readings for the primary and secondary wire coils which you can check against normal values but it can't help with actual in service conditions. When a coil gets a crack in the wire somewhere in the turns, it can work just fine when cold and then go open circuit as it gets hot and things expand. The old coil testers actually tested the coil under normal operating conditions but even those testers may not catch problems under extreme conditions of hot or cold weather.

The secondary winding can be checked across the two little terminals. The primary winding is checked from the distributor terminal to the coil tower output terminal. Now whether the negative terminal for the distributor is the proper terminal or not is up for grabs but that would be the normal procedure for a modern coil. You would have to check the manufacturers publications for the proper range of resistance for the primary and secondary coils.

Correction: primary is input (small terminals), low voltage, and secondary is output (Dist or negative terminal to coil high tension tower output), high voltage. I had them in reverse order in previous statement.