I need help on this one! K, I've got a 72 electra 225. Took it out in the rain, hit a small puddle and it died. Waited 20 minutes and it started right up. Brought it home, hit another SMALL puddle and it died. Left it in the street, next day started right up. Took it to the parts store bought plugs and wires. Put 'em in and it ran like a dream. Next day wouldnt start. Put in points, cap, rotor. Wouldnt start. thought it might be a fuel delivery prob. Carb rebuild, wont start. Plenty of fuel being delivered to the carb. Cranks great, but just doesn't catch. Please give me ideas, I need all the help I can get.
No.1 check for spark. Unscrew a sparkplug and leave it connected with the wire on. Place the spark plug so it grounds on the engine and see if there's any spark. Or just take the plug wire off, and put a screw driver in the hole and put it real close but not touching the engine, see if it shoots a spark between the screw driver and the engine. No.2 Fuel, you're sure you're getting fuel? If you work the throttle linkage does the carb squirt fuel? You can squirt some fuel from a squirt bottle straight down the carb while someone is cranking. Should fire. (Don't pour, squirt a few drops) No.3 Timing, I think that we can leave this one out for now since your car has been running good and you haven't messed with it. No.4 compression, the last ingredient needed to make the car run. Last on the list to check.
I going to say the problem may lie around your starter solenoid. I bet the insulation and/or the fusible links are frayed, loose, etc. When you hit the puddle, the water caused a short, shutting off the juice to the coil. I had a similar problem, I had very frayed fusible links and they were coated with grease and grime. Everyonce in a while, my car wouldn't start, not even turn over. I would wait a second, then it would start fine. One day, it just wouldn't start. I found that the grease/grime coating the frayed wires must have been causing a short. I wired in new links, and the starting problem was no more.
Well, 73, I think you may have hit the jackpot. I went out to look around and under the car was a fusible link laying on the ground! Now if I could track down where it came from, I think I may have it running soon. And EEE, thanx for the effort. Plenty of spark, plenty of fuel. Cranks like hell, just wont start. I'll let you guys know what happens. Thanx again to all! - Jerry:beer
I believe there are two fusible links, and I'm pretty sure they both connect to the same post on the solenoid, so just to see where the other one is connected to. To be safe, though, I would go out buy two new links and wire them in. You don't want to have to do what I did. When my car finally wouldn't start, I was lucky that I was parked where I worked. I had to unbolt the starter I had it lying on the ground, wires still connected. I went to bump the key, nothing. It was only when I physically seperated the two greased encased links with my hands that I got action when I went to bump the key again.
Lots of times, water gets into the distributor via the "window" to adjust the points. If you have fuel and spark, I doubt a fuse link is the problem. It should fire. Prolly not enough spark or at the wrong time. Seal up the cap good and use silicone around the window, you should be all set. I use di-electric around the base of the cap. Buicks are prone to this as the fan sprays water directly onto the dist(or any other car with the dist in front). BTW, are you missing any splashguards, inner fenders,fan shroud etc?
K, new story now. New coil in the car coil has power to the points, but no spark from the coil wire. WTF???!!!!
Did you get the correct coil? There are resistor and non-resistor coils depending upon whether or not you have a resister wire still in place. How are your points? are they setup right? have they failed and need to be replaced? When your points are closed your coil builds up a "charge" and once they open a spark is discharged. (this is in very simple terms, there are others on this board who could give you the entire physics of a points ignition system) Old points can be fickle and fail without rhyme or reason. I'd also suggest using the search function on this board. A question similar to yours has been asked many times before. We are all glad to help but you might find your answer sooner by searching the board.:TU:
I've had to adjust the points (dwell) quite a bit to get the car to start after installing new points. If it doesn't start or even try to, I give the screw (through the "window" on the cap) a few turns one way or the other and try again. I've had to keep doing this for a while before getting the car to fire up, after which you can set the dwell with a dwell meter. I've tried setting the new points up with the same gap as the old points prior to installing them, but that apparently doesn't work, at least for me. Distributors don't like water, but I wouldn't think they should be as sensitive as you've described unless you're missing something that would otherwise keep it dry internally, like maybe the "window". Stranger things have happened. Nick
Put in points 72 is the last year of points distros. slap in an HEI, which was a mid-year introduction anyway. triple check wiring order and the position of the #1 wire on the cap.
Did you ever tear into the the wiring at the starter like Zach suggested? I agree you should take a close look at it. Just brainstorming here. :idea2: Flooded? Timing chain jumped several teeth? I've seen it happen out of the blue, especially if it misfired when starting. Does it spin over smoothly, or with what sounds like a miss to it? Like Nick, I've put new points in only to have to adjust the heck out them to get the car to start. Though, you did say it didn't run before changing them. Bad condenser? Did you change it along with the points? (I like the unipoints myself that have the condenser built in with the points) Really, really bad gas? I don't know, since it seems to be intermittent I suspect a wiring problem.
You shouldn't have to crank the points back and forth, there are alot of after market points that just won't work. I recently bought a set with what appeared to be the same bottom plate design. As it happens there was a larger tit on the rivet holding the assembly together. This tit not only raised the deck height but found a large hole to slide into rendering adjustment impossible. Also the size of the striker bar was too large. Use Eckland or brand name points. Also check your primary wiring going to the coil and coming from the ignition it sounds like you have an intermittant break. I once had a car that had a lovely intermittant starting problem and it turned out to be the ignition switch. Be advised that you can't hot wire points for too long as they run with an inline resistor wire.
It sounds like this is pretty much covered. For some reason I'd check the coil too. Once I had a similar problem, and finally got the car started after taking a hair dryer to the distributor & cap.
:beerThank you everyone for all of your help! Turned out that I shouldn't have listened to the 17 year old kid:spank: at the auto parts store. He said that the points are partially adjusted at the factory, and should run good right out of the box. And me, 45 years old and should know better, was as dumb as a bagful of a**holes and listened to him!!!!! I popped off the distributor cap and cranked the engine a little at a time to find that the points were open almost a quarter inch even though the contact area was on the flat spot of the rubbing block! Duh, Duh, Duh! Needless to say, the problem was addressed and the car is running fine. Just one more thing...I just bought an analog snap on dwell meter to get the settings perfect, but it didn't come with the manual. Can someone tell me how to hook up the wires for the different tests (dwell and rpm)? Are they always on the pos of the battery and on the neg of the coil? I'd appreciate any help with this. Oh, if anyone has a manual for my tester, let me know, I'd like a copy. The model # is MT 926. - Jerry
My '72 Electra did the same thing going through a puddle. It was missing one of the plastic splash shields at the inner fender. Water, as mentioned previously, would douse the distributor. It would again start after a while. Mitch
Jerry, Great to hear you have the car up and running! I've already had folks tell me that sparkplugs are already gapped by the manufacturer so it's not necessary to gap them before installationou: Thanks for giving us the followup:TU:
I only deal with electronic ignition, with HEI there is a point that says tach that you hook it to. I think it is just the negative side of the coil. Not sure with the dwell.
