Morris Minor Owners Club

I think it is already widely known that a lot of the newly manufactured ignition coils available on the market are unreliable, and prone to deteriorating quickly or being very sensitive to heat.

I am looking to purchase a suitable spare: touch wood my current coil (which is very old) works fine, but just in case, I think it's about time I carried a spare. Can anyone recommend the best for me to go for from experience? If doing so would violate the terms of this forum, a PM would be appreciated. Cheers.

put the new one on the car and keep the old reliable in the boot

haha, what happened to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"?!

Try SimonBBC. But old is best! Be sure to get a 12 volt coil - and not one designed to run on 9 or even 6 volts with a resistor in series. 12 volt coil should have 3.2 Ohms resistance. Others are lower - and soon overheat horribly.

Thanks for the info BMC.

I got one from the Welsh MG Centre in Wrexham and that was fine, though I think the one that used to be on my mother's MGB may have come from there and that was a duffer. She now has an Aldon coil and that's been fine for five years.

My two MGs each have "Old" Lucas coils, which so far are fine.

the coil i got from bull motiff is very good the lucas ones you get now arnt lucas there intermotor in lucas colours

Apart from putting the coil on the car and trying it which is the correct/best way to check a coil off the car

The best/proper way is with a distributor & coil tester.
Other than that; after verifying that the windings are OK with a multimeter, hook it up on the bench with a spare distributor, a battery and a spark gap tester then spin the distributor shaft by hand (in the proper direction) and see what spark you get out of it. Should get a fat blue spark at least 3/8" long.
This will tell you how the coil is working but won't tell you how long it will last.

If it's leaking oil - or the terminals are wobbly - don't use it.