1985 245

This is regarding my old 245 that now belongs to a good friend.

The car died, and when a start is attempted, it seems like it tries to fire and immediately dies.

I visited his place and the car today in an attempt to help him out. First I checked spark, and had my friend crank the starter. SPARK!! So I shot some starting fluid into the intake. Nothing.

I put a test light on the Coil + and had 12v, and on the Coil- and also had 12v. I had him crank again w/ the probe in the Coil -, and got 3 or 4 pulses (blinks) indicating that the module was grounding the (-) side of the coil and making a spark, and then NOTHING- just steady 12v (the module was NOT grounding the coil (-). I checked continuity of the harness to the Chrysler ignition module and all was good. Checked continuity between the distributor pick-up plug and the module and it was OK (except it didn't seen to correspond to the Bentley wiring precisely pin wise, but I could find a module wire that showed zero ohms for each wire at the other end of the harness).

Bentley suggested pulling the coil wire and testing for a spark when two of the pickup plug contacts (plug removed from distributor) were shorted together w/ a jumper wire to "simulate" the distributor pickup firing the module. Each time I made connection there was a HEALTHY spark, plus I could hear the fuel pump run for about 1/2-1 sec each time I made or broke the jumper wire.

Please second guess me before I order a new pickup coil for the distributor, which the test suggested to me is the problem.

Pickup BAD, Yea or Nea, or other suggestion please.

Thanks,
Bob