Spark from coil comes and goes

[rbray]

Hi guys and merry Christmas,

My engine cut off yesterday and would not restart.
I pulled a plug to see if there was any spark and there was not.
Step two was pulling coil wire and putting the pug in it see what was going on with the coil. I got spark for the first few cranks but then noting. I repeated the test and did not get any spark at all.
Another test showed spark again for a few cranks and then spark stopped

All the connections seem to be fine.
This is probably a simple problem for an experineced mechanic, but I'm just a hobbist so I could some advice.
I'm running an MSD 6AL with an MSD coil.
Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Roger

[rbray]

I found the problem.... bad ground!

[Michael C Henry]

37 years ago I had a condenser get the best of me.I'd pull spark wire and there was spark but the 63 Ford wouldn't start. I tried everything I could think of I had the the start of a tear down.A guy I worked with was sure he knew what was wrong .He left work an hour before me and the cars owner. When The owner and myself got to the car it was all back together and running. Turned out to be a condenser that just gave up.After I came back from the Army and started being a mechanic I bought all the Mac test equip to make sure that never happened again.They don't use point anymore. I still have a suit case setup w/ coil condenser tested ,tach dwell volt meter, ohm meter ,timnig lite.compression tester,snap cap, points file, pressure vacume gauges,fender covers, etc. Do you think I took that lessen seriously?
I use to work on trucks and trailers and bad ground made lites and the like do lots of strange things .Electronics I can only emmagine.

[rbray]

great post Michael. How long have you had your E-M