car not starting

Stang67

Well-known member
I have a question I just put in a 68 distributor and now my car wont start. It will crank but it will not fire up do u think I put the distributor in wrong or is it something else. Can somebody show me a pic of there engine bay if they are running dual vacuum advance
 
incorrect vacuum advance will not prevent your motor from starting, I'd recommend unhooking all vacuum advance (and plugging the line) until you get it started. Once it runs properly you should use vacuum directly from the log, not the carb. Where did the distributor come from? Have you verified that the wiring to the coil and distributor is correct? A quick test would be to pull the coil wire from the center of the distributor cap and plug in a spark plug to the wire. Then have somebody else crank over the motor while you watch for spark.

Once you know you have spark there is the standard things to do (no particular order)
recheck the distributor timing
recheck the firing order
verify that the distributor is not installed 180° from where it's supposed to be

-ron
 
CoupeBoy":2r786h6k said:
incorrect vacuum advance will not prevent your motor from starting, I'd recommend unhooking all vacuum advance (and plugging the line) until you get it started. Once it runs properly you should use vacuum directly from the log, not the carb. Where did the distributor come from? Have you verified that the wiring to the coil and distributor is correct? A quick test would be to pull the coil wire from the center of the distributor cap and plug in a spark plug to the wire. Then have somebody else crank over the motor while you watch for spark.

Once you know you have spark there is the standard things to do (no particular order)
recheck the distributor timing
recheck the firing order
verify that the distributor is not installed 180° from where it's supposed to be

-ron
I got the distributor of ebay http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayI ... &viewitem=
This distributor has two wire a black and red one I only connect the black one should I connect the red one two postive side of the coil here is a pic of the distributor wire am talking about http://s222.photobucket.com/albums/dd15 ... 091402.jpg
 
For 'new' it sure looks dirty. Looking at your picture it looks to me like both those wires are connected so it should not make any difference which one goes to the coil. I would expect the extra connection is for something like a tach.
 
The distributor looks like an unknown commodity, I'd replace the points and condensor before pressing it into duty. And it shouldn't matter which of those connectors you use, they both come off the same wire.

-ron
 
Have you had a chance to test out spark creation yet? Another thing to verify is that the distributor housing is grounded properly, i.e no thick paint on the block and/or distributor hold down block that is preventing adequate grounding to occur.

-ron
 
Do you understand the dwell / gap thing? Do you have a dwell / tach meter? If you are not getting a signal try unhooking the condenser, I have seen more bad ones recently than I ever remember hearing about back in the day. It will run fine without it, it just burns out the points a lot quicker.
 
I got her to start up but its only for a few sec then she die what mighty be the problem there. I see that the butterfly is not moving on the carb when I hit the gas. Think I mighty readjustst the carb
 
How did it start and run before you did the swap? If it ran ok before dont touch anything else till you get it to at least start and stay running. Carb tuning could change slightly but its not going to change so much that it wont stay running. If it did sort of run (assuming it ran before) I think you have a connection, dwell, timing, or firing order problem. A dwell /tach meter can easily determine all of those factors but the timing. For the timing you just move it around till it runs and worry about the fine tuning next. Dont have the vacuum hooked up to the dizzy till you at least get it to run. Be sure to cap off the line you unhook.
 
fordconvert":v0ssgq2r said:
How did it start and run before you did the swap? If it ran ok before dont touch anything else till you get it to at least start and stay running.

Yeah, if it ran fine before the swap I wouldn't touch the carb yet, as you might be introducing more variables. Another thought, I'd also double check firing order, and be sure that your dizzy stab was not a tooth or two off.
 
Once you know you have spark there is the standard things to do (no particular order)
recheck the distributor timing
recheck the firing order
verify that the distributor is not installed 180° from where it's supposed to be


Ding, ding, ding, ding. Bonus round goes to CoupeBoy. :party:

I thought that all along but wasn't man enough to actually put it in writing. [*throws bat at bat boy, kicks dust at the catcher, shoves water cooler down the dugout steps, upends the closest bench, punches dugout wall, rolls on floor while grinding knuckles into stomach*]
 
CoupeBoy speaks from past experience, if I had to put a percentage on the number of times that I've put in a distributor the right way, I'd say it would be something like 15%. When I put the motor back into the wife's pickup in October I put it in 180°, then I watched my step-brother stare at me in disbelief as I swapped the plug wires. 2 minutes later bingo, it fired right up!

All the freaking time, and when I think it's right I correct it, and magically it would have been right the first time, but I second guessed myself. And yes I do know that there is a process for figuring out when the number 1 cylinder is coming up on pressure and by watching the rocker arm, but that takes me more time then doing it twice.

-ron
 
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