A
Anonymous
Guest
I have been having trouble with my 66 Falcon I6 200 for well over a month now. The trouble was initiated one day when I could feel the car dying and picking back up on the freeway. After this happened a couple of times I did something stupid and floored the gas pedal until the motor picked back up. One of these times the muffler exploded. I figure I was dumping uncombusted gas straight into the muffler and when the hot vapors from the running engine that just picked back up caught up with the gas it combusted and exploded my muffler. Best I can figure anyways.
Since then I have been struggling to figure out what is going wrong. The car dies randomly both when I am stopped at a light and when I am on the freeway. Often when it dies it will not restart.
Everything is stock except the coil is an MSD blaster II. I have bypassed the resistor wire to run 12V to the coil. The electricity then goes through a ballast resistor before going to the points. I have adjusted the points several times.
I have been focusing on the Voltage Regulator lately just because one time I had the hood open and I was looking around and it was buzzing like a bumble bee. I opened it up the other day and played with it a little bit, cleaned the contacts and put it back in. The car ran good out of the gate but died on the freeway and left me stranded for a little bit. I played with and readjusted the spacing of things on teh voltage regulator and the car ran fine and got me to my uncle's house.
On the way home it died at a stoplight and wouldn't restart. I pushed it to a parking lot and after while it restarted without any real changes made by me. A couple guys helped me out and they both kept saying they thought it was carb trouble. I don't think so and I'm not sure why they would say that. I rebuilt the carb a couple years ago and I could blow through the fuel filter fine a couple weeks back.
I got a new voltage regulator and put it in yesterday. The car ran great, no missing while driving and no incidents to speak of until it died at a stoplight like 3 blocks from home. After while I realized the spade terminals on the new voltage regulator weren't big enough to hold the wires on and the connector fell off. At that point i had cranked the car so long that the battery was dead. It's an Optima red top and it cranked pretty strong for quite a while but wouldn't catch. I got a jump and after hooking the wires back up to the voltage regulator I was able to start the car fine. It died once at idle and restarted ok without trouble. It idled ok and ran fine while accelerating, all in the parking lot, and the car died again. I couldn't get it to catch at all. I got a tow home. Now I still can't get it to catch.
Best as I can figure there's no spark. We tried sparking the plug and coil wires with a screwdriver and I have hooked my timing light up to the wires and nothing happens. The only thing left that I can figure is that I have a bad coil? I'm not sure how to test that. Today I tested resistance between terminals and it measured 1.4 ohms. Not sure what else to test. I checked quickly for faulty wiring at the connection to the voltage regulator and didn't see anything. The car ran with this configuration last night and I didn't do any major work to it after that. Best as I can figure a component failed, a wire burnt in half, or a connection came apart. I can't find any of these right off. Any Ideas?
Thanks,
-Dan in Atlanta
Since then I have been struggling to figure out what is going wrong. The car dies randomly both when I am stopped at a light and when I am on the freeway. Often when it dies it will not restart.
Everything is stock except the coil is an MSD blaster II. I have bypassed the resistor wire to run 12V to the coil. The electricity then goes through a ballast resistor before going to the points. I have adjusted the points several times.
I have been focusing on the Voltage Regulator lately just because one time I had the hood open and I was looking around and it was buzzing like a bumble bee. I opened it up the other day and played with it a little bit, cleaned the contacts and put it back in. The car ran good out of the gate but died on the freeway and left me stranded for a little bit. I played with and readjusted the spacing of things on teh voltage regulator and the car ran fine and got me to my uncle's house.
On the way home it died at a stoplight and wouldn't restart. I pushed it to a parking lot and after while it restarted without any real changes made by me. A couple guys helped me out and they both kept saying they thought it was carb trouble. I don't think so and I'm not sure why they would say that. I rebuilt the carb a couple years ago and I could blow through the fuel filter fine a couple weeks back.
I got a new voltage regulator and put it in yesterday. The car ran great, no missing while driving and no incidents to speak of until it died at a stoplight like 3 blocks from home. After while I realized the spade terminals on the new voltage regulator weren't big enough to hold the wires on and the connector fell off. At that point i had cranked the car so long that the battery was dead. It's an Optima red top and it cranked pretty strong for quite a while but wouldn't catch. I got a jump and after hooking the wires back up to the voltage regulator I was able to start the car fine. It died once at idle and restarted ok without trouble. It idled ok and ran fine while accelerating, all in the parking lot, and the car died again. I couldn't get it to catch at all. I got a tow home. Now I still can't get it to catch.
Best as I can figure there's no spark. We tried sparking the plug and coil wires with a screwdriver and I have hooked my timing light up to the wires and nothing happens. The only thing left that I can figure is that I have a bad coil? I'm not sure how to test that. Today I tested resistance between terminals and it measured 1.4 ohms. Not sure what else to test. I checked quickly for faulty wiring at the connection to the voltage regulator and didn't see anything. The car ran with this configuration last night and I didn't do any major work to it after that. Best as I can figure a component failed, a wire burnt in half, or a connection came apart. I can't find any of these right off. Any Ideas?
Thanks,
-Dan in Atlanta
