good, you're back. You've sure had to battle this sucker, more than most. The sparks and smoke at the battery are a real concern. It makes me wonder if you have a short circuit. One quick way to check for that is to remove the neg battery cable from the post. Take your test light and hook the alligator clip to the loose battery cable and then probe the neg battery terminal. If the light comes on and stays on when you probe, you've got a short somewhere. Those are battery killers. Some how or other you need to get this thing where it won't smoke and spark at the battery when you crank the starter. That's a warning sign.
Your coil has plenty of resistance without the need for more from a ballast resistor. That item should be completely bypassed. I think you have the module wires connected to the coil correctly. The only thing I question is this black wire supplying power to your coil when the starter is engaged. Where is it coming from? It needs to provide a full 12 volts to the coil during starter crank and also once the engine takes hold and the starter is released.
Have been going thru this thread (and many others) whilst re-doing my engine room wiring, and I just wanted to highlight and bring to attention this specific item here, which wasn't mentioned 'til page 9. Since the early 70's I've had at least 2 dozen 4x4's and other trucks of various makes and models, from a '65 Chevy panel truck to a '97 f-350, two landcruisers, a Ford econoline pick-up, eight different internationals, a suburban, an explorers, three broncos, but more importantly (at least as far as this thread goes), three early/mid 70's class a motor homes-----and all of them on dodge chassis, equipped with the 318 v-8 engines. And
every one of them at one point in time succumbed to a faulty ballast resistor. Not the resistors found on the coil, but the white, 2-wire porcelain one's that are usually mounted away from the coil on a metal bulkhead in the engine room somewhere----but are tied into the ignition circuit. These things are fragile & brittle & not very well made, are susceptible to over heating and vibrations and eventually they'll fail and leave you stranded. They will cause either a 'no-start' issue, a 'suddenly-dead-engine' issue, or an intermittent 'running-like-crap' issue. And I've experienced all three. The first time we were stuck up in the hills in so cal for an entire day and night, until I finally traced my wiring and found the b/r. I removed it from the bulkhead, turned her over and looked at the metal spring/coil thing that laid inside of a groove, connecting both wire terminals. It looked intact at first but I soon realized that the spring was actually broken. It would 'connect' now and again while the engine was running, but hitting a bump in the road or punching the gas would cause the two springs to separate, killing the engine, or at least temporarily cutting it out. This was about 30 years ago and was my first experience with these things. Thankfully the next morning I hitched a ride to the nearest town and the very helpful olde guy behind the counter clued me in on these things and sold me a new one for $6.00. Problem solved. Our next two motor homes over the years were used extensively in baja,and they too used the same type of ballast resistors----and they both fried them or broke during our surf safaris down in mexico years later. Thankfully I had learned quick and had new spares with me, so we were never stranded for more than an hour.
So what I'm getting at is that these little innocuous 'white things' mounted in your engine room will cause you a helluva lot of trouble if you don't know what they are, where they are or how to even trouble shoot them, if you're having driveability and/or no-start issues with your vehicle. Even as I'm typing this, I just got done moving my battery and tray (in our '76 traveler) over to the other fender, installed a b/warner starter relay, relocated my washer tank, removed a shoe box full of bad/cracked/brittle/useless/unnecessary olde wiring, replaced a bunch of others and am getting ready to install a couple after market fuse blocks----and noticed my ballast resistor on the firewall looks ancient and the two terminals are loose. Gonna pull it out later today and check the back side to see what it looks like. But you can bet that before our next road trip in this girl, I'll have a new spare in our tool kit. 'cuz the only thing worse than getting stuck three times in bfe america---is getting stuck a fourth time. Especially because of something so stupid, cheap and simple as one of these things.....
regards,
rb
