Hello all, I am the proud owner of a 1985 Volvo 245 GL with the B230F engine. Yesterday I replaced the battery tray and positive battery cable but after hooking everything back up, it cranks but wont start. I'll be honest... I accidentally ran 12v (the wire branching off of the positive battery cable) through the negative side of the ignition coil (didnt even bother to check which was negative and positive). Of couse I fried that coil so I grabbed another Bosch from a '91 244 we have sitting around. Hooked everything up the way it should be but still no spark. The 25amp blade fuse is good and we can hear the fuel pump cutting on and off. If anyone has any experience with this issue and could give some insight, that would be awesome. Thanks!

 

hooking the power up backwards to the coil might have fried the output of the ignition control unit (do 85's use the chrysler style ICU on the right fender, similar to the 87/88's?)

 

Its the Chrysler ICU. After some tests today the required fuses are working, managed to get the coil to spark, and all wires have continuity. Now it seems like the issue lies with either the ICU or the distributor. I tried jumping the B & C terminals on the 3-pole connector (Bosch) from the distributor and didnt see a spark on the test plug, but the A terminal had a small amount of voltage present. Backprobed the wiring harness to the ICU and voltage is present, Im just not sure how to tell if the unit is doing anything.

 

the signal from the hall sensor in the distributor is very small, and not easily measured or detected.

assuming there's 12v on ignition coil pin 15 when the ignition is switched on, hook a test light probe between coil pin 1 and ground, and crank the engine, you should see blinks on that light, that would indicate the ICU is getting the timing and firing the coil... this same thing should be turning on the fuel pump for as long as the engine is cranking and about 1 second after it stops, then the fuel pump should shut off again.