Bob, for the record, "condenser" is a pre-WW2 name for a capacitor. The item concerned here is a capacitor, though a special type suited to this kind of service.
Slothland, the points need to have exactly the right gap, and they need to meet parallel to each other. Rotate the crankshaft until the points are at the widest separation that they reach anywhere around the cam circumference, and measure their separation (the breaker gap) with a clean feeler gauge (there must be no trace of oil on the silver blocks that make and break contact). The gap needs to be exactly 0.020".
Variable spark intensity usually means a poor electrical contact somewhere, dirty points, or coil or capacitor is on the way out. When I have had them over the years it has always been a poor contact: bad coil or capacitor gave weak spark all the time (and sometimes no spark). In other words, if I had an intermittent spark (full strength alternating with no spark at all) it was generally a wire (and once, the capacitor had broken its bracket and wasn't grounded, so there was only spark when it touched ground). If I saw dull red spark, I cleaned and gapped the points. If that didn't work I reached for a new capacitor, and if even that didn't work, I replaced the coil. By then it was always fixed.
Last edited by grumpy; 04/01/12 02:37 AM. Reason: Add detail
