Has anyone experienced a really hot wire that goes to the coil. Its the one that runs between the ignition switch and the coil. The wire is hot around the dash area and around the tachometre pulse clip on the back of the instruments. Not stinking hot just very very warm and the insulation goes soft. Any clues??

Get a qualified mechanic/electrician to test the coil immediately; dont keep driving the car lest it catches fire!
If coil is a/ok then replace ANY wire that's over-heating as it could simply be fragmented internally which causes high resistance which causes over-heating.
If inconvenient to do above, and you have a correct new or known A1 coil, put it in and see if this cures prob. If no improvement, replace affected wires.
Bernie

Thanks Bernie, tried  a new coil today and its just the same. Looks like a new wire from the ignition to the coil might be the next option.

Check also the connectors at each end of the wire/s to see if they are really clean and dry.
Check also the resistance of contactors on the ignition switch itself which are more than likely dirty and carboned up after 40 years of service.
 

If you mean the pink wire with the rubbery insulation then this is the resister wire. Its a steel wire and fed from the ignition at twelve volts and reduces this to about nine volts to feed the nine volt coil. This process would cause heat so im guessing that its normal.

Thanks for all the advice guys, cleaned the ignition switch electrical contacts, checked all the connectors and the wire was a bit cooler than before. So I ran a new wire from ignition switch to the coil and the new wire is cool as.
Anyway problem solved. Thanks

That doesn't sound right to me.  The wire to the coil comes off the starter solenoid, not direct from the ign.  There should be a pink/white ballast wire (used by factory instead of ballast resistor) from tacho to connector that connects to white/yellow that runs to the solenoid.  If you have bypassed the ballast wire and are running a ballast type coil you will have problems with your coil overheating and possibly shorting.  Since capri electrics are prone to fire anyway I would check your circuits against the wiring diagram or get a sparky to go over it.

The wiring I have seems to be the original loom. There is a single spaded white wire that runs from the ignition switch up into the back of the tacho, through the taco plastic clip (pulse sensor) then it has a joiner, changes it from white to pink and white (this is the one that gets hot, white and pink). from there it goes to the starter solenoid spade and loops back to power the coil. The starter to coil wire is cool.
(i replaced the pink and white wire from the tacho to the starter and it was cool)
If this is actually is a ballast wire, maybe its designed to be hot????
 
Looks like its off to the auto electrician for some answers tomorrow.............
 

My mk 2 escort wiring sounds pretty similar.
 
I stripped the loom tape back far enough, and found the resistor  ballast wire, pink also, actually is printed as 'resistor wire, do not cut'' on the cover, and it  changes to different colors as it's spliced in the loom.
 
I never knew how hard it was to actually find a decent wiring diagram that
a. you can actually read, and
b. has at least 50% of the colors matching.
good luck.