Chrysler Repair: Lebaron wont start, roland roland, spark coil

Question
Hi Roland, I have(my daughter's)1992 Lebaron LX (V6 3.0) that died on the freeway & won't restart.  I did as you suggested(I wan't getting spark from the coil) and put a meter into the "T" plug that goes into the coil. When I put one lead into the 'cross' part of the "T", and the other to ground, and then had my wife crank the car, it did jump up(to 12 volts?).  I wan't sure if I had the meter plugged into the correct part of the "T" plug going into the coil, so I plugged it into the upright part of the connector.  I got a voltage pulse there as well(when my wife cranked the car).  So, even though it was hard to read in the dark, I plugged the meter into the "T"-plug that goes into the coil, and I got a pulse.(actually, I got a voltage pulse in both parts of the "T" connector plug when the car was cranked) But the car still won't start.  I tried to read the ohms resistance on the coil itself but the meter I was using isn't mine & I'm not sure I had it set correctly.  Anyway, I couldn't get much of a ohm reading unless I set the meter at it's highest setting.(which doesn't make sense since I was only looking for about 1 ohm of resistance).  Since I did get something out of the "T" plug feeding the coil, do you think it is the coil, or could it still be a sensor in the distributer?

Answer
Hi Jim,
History:
If you measure across the two pins of the spark coil plug and you didn't get a resistance very close to 0 ohm (it supposed to be between 0.97 and 1.18 ohms) then the primary winding of the coil is 'open' and so is no good. Touch the two leads of the meter together on any of the ohm scales and it should read 0. It should be virtually the same when you test the coil except that on the lowest setting it should read about 1 ohm instead of 0. If that is not the case, then buy a new coil.
Roland

....Roland, I know I got some DC pulse from the "T" plug that goes INTO the coil(from the ASD), so I think the problem is down the line--maybe the coil/distributer. I put the meter on OHM measurement & put one lead in the spot where the wire from the coil to the distributer comes out, and the other lead on one of the tabs that stuck out on the other side of the coil (where the "T" plug goes). I couldn't get any reading on the low settings, it was only when I set it to max that I got any reading at all, and I believe it was a 1 something, but it may be that I had it set wrong. Perhaps becasue it had alot of resistance, meaning defective?? I put the lead on the other tab(where the "T" plug goes) and got the same result. Again, it's hard to read the meter in the dark, but I don't think I was getting what I should have been getting if the coil is good. I do know that I got a voltage pulse from the "T" plug, so does that mean the ASD and computer are ok? Could it still be something in the distributer. Incidentally, I had already swapped relays, so I don't think that is the problem.

New response:
Hi Jim,
I need to know exactly what the readings are by number if we are going to make any sense of this. So please repeat the following measurements when it is light enough to see the meter:

measure across the two pins of the spark coil's T-socket and see if you get a resistance very close to 0 ohm (it supposed to be between 0.97 and 1.18 ohms); if not then the primary winding of the coil is 'open' and so is no good. Touch the two leads of the meter together on any of the ohm scales and it should read 0. It should be virtually the same when you test the coil except that on the lowest setting it should read about 1 ohm instead of 0.

Then measure betwee the high voltage tower and any shiny metal surface of the engine (or the - post of the battery) to see if that reads 11,300 to 15,500 ohms or not.

Then, re-check the T-plug volatage as I asked earlier:
checking the 2-wire plug at the spark coil where you should find that while the starter is cranking there should be 12v on the upright of "T" plug (the crosspiece is the coil primary "driver" which should be pulsing between 12V and ground but you might not be able to 'see' that with a voltmeter because the pulse rate is too rapid). You may not have seen the 12V to the coil before because your wife wasn't cranking? It will be there for 1 second (like the fuel pump when the key it turned to 'run' but then it disappears until the engine is cranked).   But the upright is definitely the "output voltage" from the autoshutdown relay which is also provided to the injectors and alternator field coils. So verify that at the coil plug.

Finally check for spark:
There should be spark from the coil when you hold the tip of its wire (pulled out of the distributor cap) 1/4" from the block/head.  But then if you do find spark on the output wire when cranking, but you don't see spark at the plugs (or the plug caps with screwdriver inserted and shaft held similarly 1/4" from block/head) then I would suspect the rotor is 'open' or the cap is shorting voltage to ground.

Thanks for the kind remarks and nomination. I regret having to ask you to re-do the tests, but unless I have all the information I will not be able to identify the source of the problem.