non starting 535 d'reg no king spark - help please

[qsch4i]

The boss has a D reg bmw 535i. it will start and run on the odd occasion but mostly flat refuses.
The car will stink of fuel if cranked for any length of time. so not that.
there is a distinct lack of spark from the coil.
on the coil terminals i have 12v both sides.
Now that leads me to think that the coil is not switching.
So the question is - how is, what is, where is the thingy that does the switching.
Would love to get the beast running again 100% of the time.

(possibly a red herring, but it would start better if a plug was removed from the block. although i have not got that far again to check or fully understand why)

Cheers
Gary

[mbrain]

Maybe worth posting on www.bmwland.co.uk.

[jonpe69]

Have a look on forum.bmw5.co.uk, they have covered this before in the e28 section.