Well, me and my father have finally just about wrapped up a complete top end rebuild. However, we've run into problems with it starting. It won't. It is blowing through the carb and backfired three times out the exhaust, but no running. We think it really just needs to crank more, and he's gonne recheck the timing, but I think it's all ok. If it's not timming and cranking it forever doesn't help, whats our next option? Any ideas what may be holding this rebuilt LG4 back?

 

Timing

 

The distributor is 180° out. Classic symptoms.

Lift it out of there, turn the shaft exactly 180°, and drop it back in. If it doesn't quite go all the way in, bump the motor over with the starter while gently holding it down, until it re-engages the oil pump drive rod and goes in the rest of the way.

 

Distributor in 180 degrees off.

 

Wow, awsome. We figured the timing was off. Tonight we went to check it with my fathers timing light, and the starter went really slowly. Then the body ground from the battery started smoking, and we're pretty sure it's completely burned. We realized the block ground was loose and not good, so we moved it and tightened it up good. Now we have no spark. Anythings specific to check for. We'll check to make sure the distributor is getting power from the battery and fix the bad body ground. Thanks for all the answers and please, keep the information comming. I plan on keeping this car a long time.

 

How is your battery now, is it fully charged? The HEI system needs a full 12volts to fire the plugs.

 

Well, timing is fixed. Upon checking the battery, it was not up to a completely full charge. It read just about 12, and dropped to 10 with cranking. We got spark just as we began to crank, then it quit. We're pretty sure it's just the battery not being charged now. The charger is on the battery and recharging the battery for the night. Tommorrow I'm gonna reroute the altenator belt, and try to fix all the small problems. Then saturday my father and I will fire it off. Tommorrow night is my High School Graduation, so we can't work on the car. But Saturday it will run and be back on the road for me Sunday.

 

Okie, the battery was fully charged, timing fixed, everything looked good. Crank it over, still no spark. Hmmm... We put jumpers on my car from my truck. Still no spark, with 13.8 volts going to the distributor. Checked the coil, everythings fine there. We assume it's the ignition module. Do they go bad often? We had spark before we changed the timing and fixed the negative ground. We assume that by cranking so much or by smoking the body ground when the block ground wasn't good, we may have blown it. We're gonna reaplce it tommorrow, along with the last few small parts and a new negative battery cable. Hopefully it run tommorrow.

 

not very likely the module decided to fail the same day you completed the top end rebuild. i'd go back and makes sure #1 is firing on compression stroke.

 

Well, it failed because we fried the battery ground a few times before we realized the problem. Now everything is up and running decent. We have work left to do, but it did run! Now it's time to fix it up nice and MOD IT!