Hotwire my Hudson

Unknown

There a proper way to hotwire a Hudson? I had a jumper wire connecting the terminals on the switch, and could crank it over and had idiot lights on, but after a while it quit while I was messing underhood with the coil (I think it's bad). There a fuse in those wires somewhere?



And will it run if I run a lead to the negative side of the coil off the battery and use a jumper to crank it under the hood? I have another car that era which will run that way, but the dash key switch may be left on even though it has no keys, since it will crank off the dash button.



I'm just trying to test fire this thing and see if it will run for a few seconds, I don't even have any coolant in it. The car's a '49 Super Six. Cranks good, seems to have compression, but while the coil gets warm I see no spark from it. The ground wire off the distributor was rough, so I made a new one and swapped it out. Points look good, cap and rotor look good, plug wires are crappy but the car must have run on them the last time it did run.



I see Napa shows a coil online for less than $20, so the next time I mess with it I'll pick one up. If it seems like it wants to run, I have a hose on the fuel pump ready to run into a can and I can put some water in it easy enough.

Unknown

Ahh, good, I wasn't sure if I could test the coil or not. Gives me some tricks to mess with the next time I get up there. Thanks -

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I probably should add, the electrical systems in this car have behaved oddly from the start. Things work, then don't work. Things don't work, but with 6V put directly to them, they work fine -



The ignition, jumpered on the switch, worked for a while, then stopped - no more AMP or OIL lights on the dash, no more cranking off the dash button, even though the wire was securely attached. The parking lights worked, then stopped - the headlights never worked off the switch, but with voltage run to the terminal on the radiator support, they work. The horns don't work from the button, but both work when voltage is applied directly. Even the clock worked for a while when first wound up and stopped - and that's not even electric. About the only thing that continues to work is the radio - and it has bad capacitors or tubes, it just humms loudly.



Now normally I'd look for a fuse block under the dash somewhere; the one fuse I did find looks fine, but is an inline fuse, and normally your headlights aren't fused in the first place. Maybe the wiring's chewed up by some critter and failing, but there's no obvious signs of shorts or damage underhood. Looking under the dash is another story, it's a bit of a pain because the seat mechanism is frozen up and I can't slide it back. But I left a battery on charge and hooked up for quite some time when I had it home in the garage and the junk battery I had then never drew many amps, so it would appear there's no dead shorts in the wiring. I've since bought a new battery for it.





It's no big deal with a jumper cable to crank it underhood, in fact it's easier than trying to reach the button from underhood. But it does all make me wonder if the wring is just shot with age, or what.