A bright green light? Are you talking about the spark or some test light?
To answer your wire question, the orange and black wires connect the pickup coil to the module to trigger it. The black wire ensures the system gets a good engine ground thru the body of the distributor.
Judging by your description, it sounds like the pickup coil is grounding out. If there is any real continuity between the orange or purple wire of the pickup to the body of the distributor (with the module unplugged from it), the pickup coil is shorted and the system won't work.
It's not real difficult to change the pickup coil, but the cost of a decent one is potentially more than picking up a used distributor.
I have had a duraspark conversion done on my 84 bII for a year now and i am having problems now. I have installed a new distributor ,ignition module and coil. I have ohm tested the wires going to the distributor to make sure they were not broke. I get a real bright green light flashing when i hold the distributor in my hand and spin the rotor, but when the distributor touches the engine block to ground the light dims down to almost nothing and no flash. Can someone explain what each wire color does on the ignition module up to the distributor? I need your input really BAD!!!!!! Please HELP!!! If you would rather talk to me on phone i will gladly call you.
