Doug Miller wrote:
In article , dpb wrote:
OK, after 50+ years, this one I've not seen before -- any guesses?

Air-cooled Wisconsin 4-cylinder gasoline engine in the boom lift.

Was running normally when parked it couple of weeks ago but yesterday
didn't want to start--quite unusual; it's kinda' easy to flood if not
careful, but normally fires right up. Yesterday didn't want to fire.

Ended up cranking 'til started pulling battery down so put the charger
on. After a few minutes was looking around checking plug wires, etc.,
all on, none broke, etc. and pulled the coil discharge wire. It felt
warm. The coil itself was too hot to touch. Anybody have a cause or
experience such a thing before?

Internal short in the coil?

Got me...I suppose it might somehow be possible, but surely new symptom
to me.

I took positive lead off and charged battery -- guess I'll go try
cranking and see if there's any spark -- I disconnected stuff last night
to be sure it didn't sit there and somehow heat up to a problem point.
Since it didn't fire at all, I'm now thinking it probably wasn't
sparking--I was thinking fuel last night when first messing around...

If so, seems like pretty bizarre failure while sitting when drove it in
and parked it.

Maybe somebody else will come along and have had similar experience in
past...

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