Briggs coil question

[BLES]

Briggs 126707-0132-E1 on JD push mower with electric start.

No spark or occasional random spark.
I checked the switch was grounding/opening when the handle was released/depressed. It was always grounding.
I removed the starter/shroud and removed the kill wire from the coil to check the coil. With the wire off the mower starts and runs fine. With the wire on - no spark. The wire itself is not grounded, but the terminal on the coil has continuity to ground. Does this mean the coil is bad or am I crazy? I've only seen coils fail so they wouldn't spark with the wire off. With the wire off it runs fine but no way to stop it except pull the plug wire off!

Time to order a new coil even though it makes spark??

BLES

[NO0C]

Sounds like you have an intermittent short to ground in the wire from the coil to the kill switch.

[KE4AVB]

The coil should have continuity to ground but will have a resistance of about 1.5 to 1.7 ohms on the new Magnetron coils which is the resistance of the coil's primary winding. There is a D13003 NPN transistor across this winding so if it is shorted or leaky it can cause no spark condition. Now the kill terminal is directly to the non grounded side of the coil's primary winding so you only read the winding resistance on a good coil. Other this check of the primary you can not test the coil's trigger circuit with an ohms meter.

But as describe I agree with NO0C that it does like an intermittent short in the external kill circuit or kill switch is not fully opening due to a bad engine brake cable.

[38racing]

i was having problem on a rider. i pulled kill wire off coil and replaced with another one that just came out long enough that i could ground it if the engine kept running.