arc on balancer

[67coupe200]

theres multiple arcs
coming off the crankshaft pully when the engines running and i was wondering why.

 

[fordconvert]

Other than that is everything running and working fine?

 

[JackFish]

You mean there is electrical arcing coming off the front of the engine, but to what? the radiator?

If so, maybe you need a ground strap. there should be a small one on the back of the block to the firewall.
And the big one on the passenger side.

 

[Lazy JW]

.... and i was wondering why.

Yikes! I too am wondering why
Do they look like ignition type sparks? Where is your battery ground strap connected?
Joe

 

[67coupe200]

its running like crap, just terrible. its really strange but the arc is not going anywhere just kinda little electrical blue arcs, it seems to idle ok but when its revved up it bogs out to the point where only a few cylinders are firing. when the car was running i took my test light from the side of the block and grounded the other end and both lights on my test light started to glow a little. To the best of my abilities everything seems to be wired correctly.

 

[fordconvert]

You got a grounding problem. Could also have a power issue that perhaps damaged the ground. You should not get a light to light between the engine and body. The neg battery cable goes to the engine and there is then a braided ground strap from the back of the engine to the firewall to ground the body. You cant have too many grounds. Just be sure they are large enough to carry all the possible current.

Grab your jumper cables and try connecting from clean bare metal on the engine to a clean bare metal part on the body. You then try from bare metal on the engine to neg battery. You could even do both.

Dont keep running it like this. The arcing is very hard on the parts such as bearings and gears. I would also recommend wearing at least safety goggles when you are exploring this issue. Ya never know when you may stumble on a serious short and make a giant spark which is a bad thing around fuel and operating batteries.

 

[MPGmustang]

and some gloves :shockin: :shockin:

 

[67coupe200]

if the battery was not grounded properly then would the block be "charged" all the time and not just when the car is running, not to mention the batt would be dead right ? I have visually checked the ground wire on the block and the firewall they look good and clean enough but never the less i will take 'em off and clean 'em really well, its just that would be too easy of a fix to be true. Could this be in the distributor somewhere? I just replaced it with a rebuilt stock load o matic but it was running the same before i did these things

 

[Thad]

When chasing the problem run the engine as little as possible. The current will be arcing through the oil film on the bearing causing causing pitting. Friend ruin bearings on a rear axle welding on traction bar brackets, he had ground on housing flange next to axle bearings.

 

[67coupe200]

its very possible that Ive already got pitting, i had to drive it almost twenty miles back to my house from the shop, it did ok at highway speed but it still wasn't running right. I just cleaned up the contact ground wires from the block and the firewall but it didnt change a thing

 

[Lazy JW]

Did this all show up when you replaced the distributor?

 

[67coupe200]

this problem was not evident when i got the car and a few weeks ago it started to cut out when i was at cruising speed, or the vacuum advance was supposed to be working. So I tested the advance but it didn't work so i just went ahead and replaced the whole dist. but the problem was there before i replaced anything on the ignition system except for the plugs. My timing light will flash erratically on the first three cylinders so now i dont seem to have a constant spark and i dont know why.
Now that being said i found a loose wire on the alternator, so I grounded it and now the arc on the balancer isn't showing but i still don't have a good spark?

 

[Lazy JW]

...... i found a loose wire on the alternator, so I grounded it and now the arc on the balancer isn't showing........

Weird.

Not sure about the partial sparking but there must be something goofy inside that distributor; sometimes the wrong length rotor can mess things up, loose shaft bushings could cause some problems (they would have to be almighty loose though), a worn distributor cam, maybe just improperly set points, arc marks inside the cap will give you fits for sure. You're just going to have to tear that thing apart and start looking at it.
Joe

 

[fordconvert]

Its been a while since I looked at my Ford's wiring but I dont recall anything on the alternator being grounded. I thought the alternator grounds were all through the case. I have also never tried letting one run full blast, I wonder what voltage they are capable of? IF it was going to full load I suppose it would be enough to put a strain on the engine but you would think that 50 amps would be going somewhere making a lot of heat. Little blue sparks is just lots of voltage, 50 amps is more than enough to weld with.

Do you have a volt meter? Is your system charging? What is system voltage with the engine running? I wonder what happens to the ignition system if you say run it at 20 volts? I could imagine the arc at the points getting bigger but not why it would be going to the balancer.

 

[Lazy JW]

Its been a while since I looked at my Ford's wiring but I dont recall anything on the alternator being grounded......

Good catch, I overlooked that very important detail

I don't have a schematic for a '67 but I doubt they are much different than the later stuff (assuming this is a stock setup). AFAIK they do indeed ground through the case, my schematic for a '73 pickup shows an actual ground wire running from the alternator case to the regulator base mounting point, the other three wires are the Main Output (large wire), the Field coming from the regulator, and the Choke Supply (dunno if the 67 uses electric choke or not).

At any rate, it is not good to just hook wires to ground willy-nilly without first knowing for absolute certain that it belongs there
Joe

 

[ludwig]

Here is a site with a zipped wiring diagram for 67's. I use the 66 diagram as well.

http://midlife66.com/wiring/wiring.html

 

[67coupe200]

so the arc is still there only its on the back side of the balancer so that's strange. Although it was right in front of my face the entire time my k&n air filter was so clogged that it was choking the engine out causing it to not only run very rich but some cylinders not at all! I swear i tried testing that but now all seems to be good... so yeah im glad its working now but damn i feel stupid .
But this little blue spark has got to be a ground issue and i assume the block is not properly grounded so what if i run a ground wire from the block to the frame :

 

[Lazy JW]

........ what if i run a ground wire from the block to the frame :

By all means do so; there is no such thing as too much ground. I'm really puzzled about this stray sparking problem; you do need to make certain that the alternator is wired correctly and go from there.
Joe

 

[fordconvert]

Perhaps completely unhook the alternator and isolate the wires from it to see what happens. Maybe even pull the belt off for a quick test, you dont want to run it long that way because the water pump wont be working but you could run it long enough to see if its still sparking.

 

[67coupe200]

interesting idea but what would taking the belt off do? Isolating the alt wires would be a for sure test though. I still cant seem to find the ground strap from the block to the firewall though, all i can find from anywhere on the engine is a ground from the starter to the firewall, and the solenoid to the block. The batt i think grounds out to somewhere on the frame, im tryin to think of any other grounds in the engine bay but im at a loss right now and its not right in front of me.