Question about these wires coming from the harness that has the purple starter wire. I believe this black wire goes to the positive side of the coil but I'm not sure about the yellow wire attached to it. Its on a manual trans 69 442.

 

That goes to the positive side of the coil. The black wire is actually a resistance wire, it drops ignition voltage down to around 9 volts while the engine is running.

The yellow wire also goes to the positive side of the coil, the other end goes to the R terminal at the starter solenoid. When your cranking the engine, the starter will pull system voltage down due to the heavy current draw. The ignition won’t fire if the only power source is thru the resistance wire ( if the resistance wire normally drops voltage to 9 bolts, the starter draw will drop it even more). The yellow wire supplies battery voltage during cranking, bypassing the resistance wire.

Hope that helps.

 

yes! Thank you so much!

 

I had to replace a section of the black resistance wire because it was all cracked up and much of the insulation was missing. Do you know if the new wire will cause any issues with resistance?

 

The resistance wire is a fixed length for a reason, to keep the coil from over heating.

 

would you recommend trying to find the same type and length of wire to replace it?

 

If your still running points, then yes.

 

You are unlikely to find the correct resistor wire, unless you take if from another Olds harness. You may need to run regular copper wire and use an in-line ballast resistor.