Coil wire grounding to… everything

[Bianca1973]

Good evening all,
I was playing with my carburetor the other day & noticed a sparking noise in the engine bay. After poking around a bit I grabbed the coil wire (to the distributor) and it zapped me. Moving the wire around a bit, I could see it arcing to literally anything within 1/4”- hood latch mechanism, other spark plug wires, myself, etc.
thinking I just had a faulty wire I checked the resistance & its 5000 ohms. Which I thought was a little high but not crazy. Is that correct?
If the wire is within spec, what in the heck is going on?
The coil is fairly new, so I’m guessing that isn’t the issue.
The car was running fairly rich for a while, is it possible that there’s so much crud on the plugs that there is less resistance through the coil wire insulation than between the plug electrodes? I pulled one to look & it was sooty but not caked or anything.
Any suggestions would be appreciated!
David

[18Fiatsandcounting]

You need a new set of plug wires, or the ones you have are very low quality. It's normal for "carbon core" (resistive) plug wires to have resistances from several kohms up to ten to fifteen kohms, and ignition systems are fine with this. The "spark" has to jump not only the gap of the spark plug but also the air gap between the rotor and the inner contact of the distributor cap, and these resistances are much higher than those of the plug wires.

Get a set of high quality plug wires with thicker insulation and you should be fine.

-Bryan

[Bianca1973]

Thanks Bryan,
I ordered a new set of wires & plugs when I discovered the problem. I’ll update this thread when I receive them. I replaced the plugs & wires when I bought the car about 18 months ago with 7mm wires from AutoRicambi. Wouldn’t have thought they were faulty but that’s by far the easiest place to start.