Well, my car has pushed me over the edge. No spark again. Brand new cap, rotor, ignition module, known good coil, new starter/solenoid, new battery, new battery connections +&-, rebuilt top end. What could be the source of our no spark problem? We had spark and the car ran fine untill the solenoid went. We assume that the solenoid sent out a system wide short, probably frying something. We fixed the solenoid, but we still get no spark. There is plenty of fuel, and the starter turns the engine with no problems. We are just getting no spark. I'm at wits end with this car. It has been one stupid problem after another, and I'm almost ready to just junk the thing. Me and my father have no clue what it could be. Any suggestions from teh forum? We've looked in books, but like I told him, guys with first hand knowledge are alot better then books. Thanks to anyone that tries to save this car.

 

The solenoid can't "fry" anything. I wouldn't worry about that.

Did it have spark before you replaced the cap and all that? If it did, and the spark went away when you workd on the dist, then I'd suspect that something is assembled incorrectly. Have you gone back and checked your work inside the cap? All the little metal strip connector things back in their right places? The little 3-pin plug hooked up correctly? No broken wires in that little harness? Make sure the 12VDC is hooked up to the correct terminal of the dist cap. Try disconnecting the tach wire. See if you have spark then.

 

Where in MA are you? I would check the ignition from top to bottom and make sure everything is hooked up correctly.

 

I'm in Norton Mass. 45 mins south of Boston.

The car had spark before the solenoid went. The car was running before the solenoid went. Now we just have no spark. Plenty of power, plenty of gas, but no spark. Would it be a fusible link at the solenoid? Or would it be the ignition switch possibly? Or did we hurt the starter somehow when we put it in or started it?

 

Why don't you PM me later this week, I'll be in Attleboro Thursday or Friday and can take 123 to go through and I'll stop in.

I'd start by checking if you have power at various places. Start at the disrtibutor and work your way out. You didn't short anything when swapping the solenoid? Batt disco before, etc.?

 

So did you work on the starter, and then try to start it, and it cranked but wouldn't start, so you began working on the dist? Or did you do all this dist work at the same time, and then it acquired this no-start problem?

One more time, the solenoid CAN NOT kill the ignition system. It didn't happen. Put the thought out of your mind. All you'll get from inventing convoluted explanations for something based on lack of understanding in detail how it works, is a tow and shop service bill.

Yes there are fusible links at the solenoid, which you could have damaged in the process of changing the starter; however, they're in the line feeding power to the ignition switch, not from it. So if one was bad, it would keep the car from doing anything at all.

If all your interior lights, radio, headlights, power seats, door locks, etc. etc. etc. are working, then the fusible links are OK.

Check your work on the distributor. That's where the problem most likely is.

"The simplest explanation that fits all the facts is usually the right one."
— Occam, ancient Greek philosopher, from when all cars had a magneto because they didn't have a battery

 

I just pulled the number one spark plug. I'm not 100% sure how to check it for spark. But it seems dry. I just cranked the engine, so shouldn't it have gas on it? I also just noticed a ticking sound comming from the carb? Are we not getting fuel all of a sudden and still getting spark?

 

Okay, the solenoid is not the problem. We have power to everything else. THe dist has plenty of power and we tried jumping the battery with another car to see if it was the battery. nothing worked. You guys are very quick, and I thank you for all your help. We have a voltmeter, and have checked everything it said to check, and everything seems to be working fine. Also, we did not dist work after it was running. All we did was change the starter and try to start it. Now we have been poking around trying to find the problem.

 

The ticking is OK. It's the mixture control solenoid. It's supposed to do that. It ticks 100% of the time when the engine is running, and it usually ticks for about 30 seconds or so after you turn the key on, if the engine doesn't start.

You can try some starting fluid, to substitute for fuel; or even just pour a little bit of gas into the carb and then try starting it. You can hold the choke open and watch down in the throttle bore as you pull the throttle open, and you should see gasoline squirt into the throttles.

You can check it for spark, by hooking its wire to it, and holding its metal body against some part of the engine's metal mass, and cranking the motor; you should see nice big fat loud purplish-white sparks. Little weenie blue-orange ones that you can barely hear won't work, because they are too weak to jump the plug gap when in the compressed mixture in the cyl.

 

ok, we have fuel. Unfortuneatly I can't check for spark right now, as I'm home alone. I'll do that tonight with my father. But, it's pretty much gaurenteed there isn't any. I guess once I'm done with lunch I get to start running down the entire ignition system. It cranks fine, just won't fire. Any particular place other then the dist I should look? It may be the pick up coil, as my father thought. Any way to check this? Thats about all that wasn't reaplced in the rebuild.

 

You can check its resistance, between the white and green leads. Should be in the neighborhood of 600 - 1000 ohms. Shake and pull the leads as you check it to make sure it's not intermittent.

 

Thank you very much RB83L69. You and Red Devil have been a great, great help. Thanks again.

 

I just got the reading from the pick up coil. ".807 kiliohms." is that 807 ohms? I'm not 100% sure if it's good or bad.

 

Yup, 807 ohms, right in the range it needs to be in, so it's probably OK.

 

No prob, I haven't done anything yet. That would be that RB guy.

Have you verified power to the coil yet? Sure it's wired correctly? You could check spark to the dist. Some people recommend against it, but I just sit the boot up to the trailing edge of the windshield frame and crank to see if I get a spark. That would at least bring us up to the coil and verify key gen ignition.

 

Thank you again. I am pretty much positive that the coil is absolutely fine. It worked fine before and we took one out of an '85 Olds Toronado and it still is not working. Will this coil be useful? The old one worked fine before. Do they just go bad? This problem is just very puzzling.

 

Well, I just picked my mother up from work. Got home and told her to crank it as I held the plug to check to see if we had spark. We have spark. it is yellow/red in color and isn't powerful enough to spark the cylender. So, we do have spark, but not enough spark. What could be the culprit there? We have plenty of juice getting to the distributor. Is the coil bad? The capacitor? I'm not sure what could be bad, but I feel so much better knowing we have spark, just not enough.

 

Okay. Did some more diagnostics today. We have still have spark, just not enough. Battery is good. Starter is good. I stil have no clue what is causing this problem. I also can't find anything about weak spark on this forum. When we crank the battery, it erally drops off fast. If that the problem? I mean, we loose about 2-3 volts as soon as the starter starts to crank. Is there a short somewhere? Again, it cranks fine and fires but without enough juice. If the fusible link gone and causing a large resistance load? I'm stumped and frustrated with this car.

 

It's not the fusible link. Remember, that's in the SUPPLY line to the ignition switch; if there was something wrong with it, the solenoid wouldn't work either. In any case, it wouldn't be a "short" in that wire; a "short" would be the metal inside the fusible link touching ground.

It's normal for the batt to lose a couple of volts off while cranking. It should stay above 10 though, probably even above 11.

Disconnect the tach wire and try it.

Try connecting a wire from a good hard source of 12V to the "BATT" terminal of the dist. USE AN INSULATED SLIDE TERMINAL!!!! IF IT TOUCHES THE "TACH" TERMINAL, YOUR MODULE WILL INSTANTLY BECOME TOAST!!!! Also, don't forget that if the engine starts, the only way to turn it off is to disconnect that wire.

 

I tired the disconnect tach, nothing. I disconnected the battery wire, and stuck a jumper wire up in and connected it up to a good 12V source. I connected the negative to teh body of the car and tried. Nothing. I'm starting to think that the only problem is the car doesn't want to start, lol. :-) Thanks for your help.

 

Okay. Red Devil came by yesterday and helped me out with some stuff to do. I found TDC and moved the plugs to fire the 6 plug. The rotor was already on the plug right before, so I just moved all the plugs one over. After cranking it, I got nothing, then a great big backfire up through the carb. I figured it was 180 off. So I found TDC again, moved all the plugs back, and it pointed to the number one plug so I turned to dist to fire the number 6 plug. Tightened everything back down and cranked it. Nothing. No backfire, no engine noises. It still doesn't sound like it's firing. Red Devil asked me if it was getting fuel in the cylinder. I'd assume so since we didn't change anything there and we had it running fine before. Red Devil told me there was enough spark to fire, not very strong, but enough to not get blown out. How would I check to make sure it's getting fuel in the cylinder? When I crank the engine it spins like hell, so I'd take it that I'm not getting any combustion in the cylinders. I appreciate all the help this forum has give me so far.

[edit] I found the little piece of metal holding the dist from moving was not holding down the dist before I took it out and moved it. Would this be the problem? Was my timing on but not because the dist was moving? [/edit]

 

splash a little gas down in the carb.. NOT ALOT.. just a little splash you wouldnt want to flood it . it should start or at least spudder if your timing is right and there is spark. as far as the combustion i think your looking at other things instead of the real problem. if it ran before chances are it has plenty of compresion. it doesnt change itself and the only thing changed was the dist so i would recomend getting it in time (since it was twisted you probraly are far off by now) and then splash some gas in it.

 

Well, the carb puts plenty of gas in when I pull the throttle. I opened the flap and saw the gas squirting into the carb. As for the timing, I brought it to TDC and then put in the dist with the plug lined up. Is there something I'm doing wrong? I'm going to try and put the timing back again I guess, and try to put a jump on the car to see if thats the problem.

 

THE BATTERY? is the battery dead? because if its not.. most likely it has nothing to do with the spark.i think you keep looking in the wrong place for this problem.


let me know if im correct or maybee misunderstand but these are the facts.

you have fuel
you have compression obviosly because it ran before.correct
you have spark

this leads me to believe you have your timing off pretty bad.

i could be wrong. also when your setting the timing are you making sure that you have it tdc on the compression stroke? if not that might be why it wont run. check again and let us know.

thx

 

Start over. Really. Pull the distributor, cut a hole in the old cap like I told you. Fix the bolt hole for the rotor while it’s out. (it needs to have both those bolts in)
You have the rockers exposed. Put a rag in the #1 hole. When both vales are closed and the rag shoots out, verify the piston position with a screwdriver and the balancer. Line up the oil pump shaft to where you think the dizzy will drop. Drop in the distributor so that #1 plug has the rotor pointing to it, preferably (my own) corner to corner rotor to #1 tab. Spray in some starting fluid, not gas, and start the car.

What metal thing exactly??

 

The battery is fine, 11.74V when just sitting.

The little clamp that you loosen with the distributor wrench. It pulls back when you tighten the nut. I had to hold it in there to hold down the dist. I'll go out and start over, again. :-) Hopefully I'll come back with better results. And yes, I do believe the timing is off, but I just can't see how I got it off with trying twice to put it dead on. I'll BBL with news.

 

Okay. We took the dist completely out of the car. The only component we didn't replace so far is the ignition coil. Everything else is new. We put it back in with timing as close as we could get it. Then, I routed the plug wires again and hooked them up. The battery is reading 11.98V with the car off. I get in, turn the key on, and ceank it. The starter spins like a *****, spinning the engine with it, but nothing. Still doesn't start, and it still sounds like there is no combustion in the cylinders to slow down the starter. Plus, the starter makes this real high pitched whine when it starts. It sounds like one of those "funny" horns people have in their cars. Anyways, we are at a complete loss as to what the problem can be, and if it's not fixed today it goes to a mechanic. We have too much to do around our house to work on my car for over a month without gaining any headway.

 

So long as the starter is spinnin' the motor, I'd worry about that later. Was someone turning the dist. while you were cranking to try and get the engine to light?

 

Okay, no real work done on the car today. Tommorrow I plan on seeing if I can get a replacement starter, because we are almost positive thats what it must be. we get plenty of spark just cranking the engine for a second, and the distributor is completely rebuilt and still no running. So, we are almost positive that we got a bad starter. Autozone better take it back and replace it because they told me it was fine on their little tester. Anyone know what that tests? Also, does anyone know if there are any ignition wires running along the drivers side of the engine bay? We had a small oil fire for a few moments when we were running the car with the cut out valve covers just on teh drivers side. Could we have burnt out a needed wire that could have caused our no start problem? I am going to check it tommorrow morning, and if all wires look good, I'm taking the starter back out and bringing it back to Autozone to get my replacement. Thats teh only thing that could be wrong with this car at this point. Everything else is pretty much rebuilt or known good. I have to buy a battery tommorrow anyways. The one in my brothers blazer took a dump, and he has mine, so I'll just buy a new one tommorrow.

 

lol, posted at teh same time. No, noone was turning the dist while we were cranking. I was doing it by myself. Should we try that before changing out the starter?

 

Okay, we've done some more work. It must be that there is no fuel getting into the cylinders because the spark is fine. Oh well. We have to re-adjust the rockers, as thast all we can see that we changed after it ran and before it didn't. I don't know how we ****ed them up, but we must have. I'm not sure how, but thats about all it can be. Therefore, I'm now searching to find the proper way to tighten the rockers as I know I've seen threads about that.

 

Dude, the rockers didn't just suddenly dis-adjust themselves. Leave them alone.

You gotta quit just sticking your fingers into stuff you don't know how to do, and then the car still won't run, and then you jack around with something else you don't know how to do. You're just moving from one part to another, disabling stuff as you go. You're going backwards.

It's the classic situation where the big nut that belongs between the steering wheel and the driver's seat came loose, and started rattling around under the hood, and broke all kinds of stuff before it finally just quit.

If the car doesn't have fuel, then it will start by squirting fuel into the intake. Try that before you go any farther, if you really think it's not getting fuel. You don't troubleshoot a no-fuel situation by messing with the rockers.

Don't touch anything else that you haven't touched yet. It sounds like every time you touch something, it gets worse. Concentrate on putting stuff that you've already touched, back into working order.

Is the spark getting to the correct cylinder at the correct time? Just because you have spark, doesn't mean the the engine is obligated to run. You've had the dist out and apart, so I'd strongly suggest making sure it's timed to the engine right, and the plug wires are on in the right order, etc. etc. etc. DON'T mess with something that isn't broke just yet.

 

The timing is right. We triple checked it. My father was a mechanic for several years, and knows quite a bit about working on engines in general. We are getting spark, but the spark plugs are not wet when we pull them after we crank the engine. We did pour fuel down into the carb and try to start it. Should we take the carb off and just try to pour some fuel in to see if it starts? We did get very little backfiring through teh carb once in awhile as we adjusted things and cranked the car. We re-adjusted teh rockers after we had it running last time and before we put the new starter in to get the car running. Thats why we think we screwed them up when we adjusted them without the car running the very last time. We did it by having everything when the #1 cylinder was supposed to fire, and adjusted the rockers we were told to. Then we cranked the engine over 360 degrees and adjusted the others.

ok, got th book. With plug #1 firing, we adjusted exhaust 1, 3, 4, 8 and intake 1, 2, 5, and 7. 360 degrees we did the others, namely, exhaust 2, 5, 6, and 7, and intake 3, 4, 6, and 8. Did we somehow do it wrong? We tightened them down untill they did not move up or down or side to side, then another 3/4'ths of a turn.

 

If it didn't start by pouring fuel down the carb, then there's some other problem besides fuel delivery.

Back all the rockers off ½ turn. Try pouring fuel into the intake with the carb still on (a small amount should do, like an ounce or so) and see if it will start.

Backfiring through the carb = either valves too tight, or distributor 180° out of phase

 

I gaurentee the timing is not 180 out. I wasn't sure if just turning the rockers off might help or not. I will go talk to my father and we will try that. Thank you very much for your help. I'm sure you've gotten a bit frustrated working with me, it's very common. Thanks for sticking with me and helping me and my father out.

 

Thanks for the help. The valves were too tight. Way too tight. We are now getting them adjusted better, with the car running. Again, thanks to everyone who helped.

 

So she runs now? Good. When did you play with rockers? And why didn't you mention it before? No matter, at least it runs right?

 

We adjusted the rockers after we shut it down once, and we never started it back up untill we replaced the starter. I just never thought of it because we did it by the manual I have. We did it exactly as it said to do it, but they ended up way too tight. And yes, she is running and all the valves are correctly adjusted now. She's running like a top. I was lamost pushed to tears when she finally started up and idled. I never mentioned it because, well, I never thought of it. I'm not a mechanic, and never thought of the valves being too tight causing it to not start. I had to think about why that would do that, and figured out it's because the fuel is going in when the piston goes down, then is just pushed right back out when teh piston goes back up because there is nothing holding it in. But it is running, and thanks for all the help from this forum. Now it's onto making the headlights work again, and fixing up the interior. The extrior is in pretty good shape as is, and the t-tops don't leak. I got somewhat lucky with this car.

 

thank ***!! i thought you were gonna adjust the struts next..
just jokin

good to hear you got it goin it makes perfect sense. wish i would have known that before tho