I am a far cry from being an auto-electric expert. I can tell you the service procedure for testing the pick-up coil in the distributor. Connect an ohmmeter to the pigtail leads of the distributor, resistance reading should be 150-900 ohms. Another test is to connect one lead from the ohmmeter to ground and the other to either of the pigtail leads. If the meter shows a reading the pick-up coil is bad. I got this information from my blue Motor's manual. In my experience Motor has always been the gold standard of repair manuals.