Burnses - your idea of changing just the winding assembly got me thinking... If the 028 points coil works, then a ms290 coil should work. Right? The ms290 coil is supposed to be a replacement for the 028 points coil from what I understand and it would possibly convert the 032 from points to electronic ignition. Anyway, I followed Burnses lead and pushed off the winding assembly from the 032 ignition, pushed on the winding assembly from an ms290 ignition. Replaced the spark plug wire with a little longer piece, installed the ignition, and tested for spark. No go.
I figured, I would at least get a spark, if the ms290 winding was good (this is unknown, I got this coil used with some other parts). So I started testing the ms290 winding. I'm not sure how this works with the built in electronic ignition. I tried ohming out the leads on the winding and the only thing that didn't read open was the spade terminal that went to the kill switch had zero ohms to the saw case. Does this mean the winding is bad? or is it backwards from ignitions that short the spark to ground to kill the spark?
Any other suggestions on whether this may or may not work? ms290 coils are cheap enough I will buy a AM one to tinker with, if this has a chance of working!