Ballast resistors

[Smokey]

On my Day 2 car, I have a Mallory Dual point. Last year it was giving me fits, and I thought it was shorting out from one of the leed wires touching the vac advance stuff under the cap. One one set of points was fried, the other was ok.

Fast forward, I pull dist, set up the points on a friends Sun Machine, set the points and dwell so its happy happy. Installed it last weekend at 10 degrees and drove it and ran 1/4 tank of gas through it. Still had strong power for what it is and still got 3rd gear rubber.

30 minutes ago I pulled it out of the trailer to take it out tonight and now its cutting in and out like it was last year. No wires touching this time. It backfires big time....so I was thinking maybe its loosing power and gaining it then loosing it then gaining it to make it sound like shotguns going off. So I get out my meter, I have 12.5 on the battery and 11.8 or 11.9 on the top of the resistor and 5.2 on the bottom. I googled up some stuff and nothing really mentions how many volts but only ohms. So I think I ohmed it, and if I put it at the 200, 200k or 20M setting on my meter, it ohms out the same as if I touch the leads together and goes to ZERO. Did I hit the nail on the head and have a bad ballast resistor? Its hot hot hot and the temp gauge for the engine is at maybe 130-140. I just moved it out the trailer and tried to pull it up the driveway.

Thanks