1980 470 Mercruiser starting problem

[moneypit]

Morning everyone. New guy here. Here's my problem. Just replaced my 1980 470 Merc. with a reman. motor. I originally installed one of those Pertronix ignitor kits, with coil. Old motor ran before removal. For some reason, when i turn key to on position, the + side of coil is shorting out. It seems when i have the red wire coming off of ignitor pickup, and the main hot wire(purple i believe) together, is when it shorts out. Tried changing coil out with old one. No change. If i remove red wire off coil, and put my main hot wire on coil, i get 12.5v on both sides of coil with key on. Is it possible the Ignitor pickup could be shorting out in distributor? Also, if i run a jumper wire right from the battery to + side of coil, the motor starts, but runs rough. Any thoughts??

 

[pugetsounder]

Black wire to neg (-) coil terminal, red wire to positive (+) coil terminal, purple wire cut and seal off end, tie up out of the way you don't need it. That's why your shorting our. I believe the gray wire is the tach.

 

[lselmes]

Hi, I too have a 1980 470 with the Pertronix electronic ignition matched with the Flamethrower coil. I have 2 wires going to the IGN terminal on the switch. One of the wires is purple which goes to all the gauges and the other is a direct shot to the POS(+) terminal on the Flamethrower. Is this correct to have both of these connected to the IGN terminal on the key switch? I haven't hooked up a battery or fired the motor up since I purchased the boat last fall as I'm in the process of restoring her. I just want to make sure I'm wired correctly for my first start up.