Re: It just died while driving
 

Points and condenser checked out Sam, thanks! I think I found the real culprit. A while back I bought a new Jet Q-jet with electric choke. (I ordered manual choke but they sent the electric so I kept it and installed it.) My buddy was over at the house and he hooked up the electric choke's power wire to the coil. I thought that was a bad idea but he said naah, it's fine there. The electric choke functioned properly for a few months and then slowly stopped functioning and the car reverted to fussy start-ups and poor cold idle quality. I didn't think much of it because the engine has well over 100k on it and it's just an old car. So during this recent crap-out I replaced the coil with an OEM-look stock replacement coil from Rick's and disconnected that damn electric choke wire that had always bothered me because it was connected to the coil rather than its own dedicated power source. As I've said above the car now starts and runs like a real champ. Smooth cold start, smooth cold idle (for a 110K 396/325) and the electric choke is not hooked up. I think I may have fried the old coil with that choke wire siphonong-off current? That might explain the tach needle bouncing a few times after the engine quit at speed on the freeway? Any comments on my hypothesis??? Could the choke wire drawing off the coil cause coil failure or at least diminished coil performance?

Now I'm going to remove the electric choke setup and see if I can re-mount the old manual choke parts.