Starting Woes! Intermittent/Incosistent

[Anonymous]

Problem: Car will crank and does everything shy of running on its own. I put in the key, pump the gas twice and turn the key – everything going as normal and the moment I let my hand off the key it dies. I’ve had this issue before (a month or so ago) and the only thing I did to make it “betterâ€￾ was replace the burned rotor and dist. Cap with better quality parts as once recommended on here. Other than these secondary ignition replacements, I have only retimed the car (which made the starting much more consistent – it went from almost 20* advance back to about 14*.). Anyone have any recommendations on what could be causing the rotor and dist. Cap’s points to be burning like this? I’ve been running a pertronix one w/ a flamethrower coil. But if that were defective, wouldn’t it be either fail or no fail, rather than intermittent? Anyway, I’m stumped and tired of replacing caps and rotors because of charred contact points. If there are no clear culprits, I think I may start going through everything electrical on that car in hopes to eliminate the problem…i.e. solid state voltage regulator, replace the alternator (I’ve already replaced all battery cables and installed an optima battery), etc, etc….

Thanks as always for your input!!!

P.s. I went to the junkyard (my first time) with no luck. No more ignition parrts (i.e. duraspark) left though...

 

[JackFish]

Just a question, do you coat the contacts with silicone?

 

[Anonymous]

no...i was never told i should....would you recommend that?? And if so, on both the distributor cap points and the rotor's contact point?

 

[JackFish]

Yah, I would give that a try, can't hurt and may be the solution you seek.
Coat any electrical connections like the coil cap, both ends of the spark plug wires, cap contacts, rotor tip.
I even put it on the starter motor and relay wires.

 

[pedal2themetal45]

Sounds like a ignition switch to me... turn the key on and see if your coil + is hot it should be...
try running a jumper wire to the coil or the hot wires of your module or what ever you have and see if it runs then. if it does then I'd replace the igh. switch.
Tim

 

[mustang6]

I agree on the igntiion switch diagnosis. We've diagnosed others with similar symptoms and ignition switch replacements fixed their problems...

 

[addo]

It's also exactly what happens when the resistor wire dies or (as I managed to do once ) is not re-connected after engine work.

Regards, Adam.

 

[pedal2themetal45]

As addo says I'd check the wires from the switch also just to make sure its not the fuseable link (wire).
tim

 

[Anonymous]

As the two previous state " check the fusible link" . Running in the start position and dieing in the run position is a classic fusible link failure symptom.

 

[Anonymous]

awesome...looks like i'll be picking up a new ignition switch anyway and checking all the wiring. any idea as to how involved this project will be??

thanks for the input - you guys are awesome!

 

[Anonymous]

I mistakenly started a new post that basically read:
a new ignition switch did not fix my problem. Well, today we hot wired the car (batt. To coil) and it started right up. We took off the connection for hot wiring it and she kept running. I’m hoping it’s an intermittent Pertronix unit in which case they should give me a new one, otherwise, I’ll make the shift to Duraspark…the only problem being is that I can’t find a dizzy and module from a 70’s-80 ford…guess I’ll have to buy one from an auto part store. Thanks to all of you that gave your feedback and input – it’s much appreciated!

 

[Anonymous]

So after hot wiring the car, I can now start the car regularly…however, I believe there must be an intermittent wire somewhere that is causing the car to not “catchâ€￾ and continue to run every 5 or 6 starts…perhaps I should just ditch the pertronix unit all together and go with duraspark two w/my autolite 1100 and flamethrower coil. I’m trying to make an extremely dependable daily driver and considering that a lot of the major components (i.e. engine, brakes, suspension, exhaust) are new or newly rebuilt, I don’t think that should be too difficult even with 40 year old technology. Does anyone know how difficult it would be to just replace the one wire that runs from the coil to the ignition switch, just incase that is the intermittent culprit? I’d hate to buy a new harness but perhaps I should (the other two wires that go in the harness…oil sender and temp sender function properly).

Well, thanks again guys for all of your help…looks like I’ll be buying a duraspark 2 dizzy from napa and going that route in hopes that it will take care of my electrical/ignition woes.

 

[addo]

Use a relay. Modern ignitions and coils can have higher current draw than the design rating of your harness.

Locate the resistive wire that leads from your ignition switch, to the coil, and replace it with a non-resisting wire. Use it to power up a relay that feeds your ignition. Go well overgauge on the new wires.

I would suggest running the new wire from your switch discreetly through the firewall in order to possibly have it as an anti-theft measure (with in-line switch), too.

 

[Anonymous]

Okay...here's the latest:

I went to my friendly mechanic for his opinion. He says that he sees tons of problems that are caused by Petronix. He thinks they'll refund me my money since I've only had it two months. Also, he highly recommends that for my six, as a daily driver, that I go back to Points because they're reliable and as long as you gap them every 3-6k miles they'll be fine...whereas with any electronic ignition, I am screwed if it acts up....However, he did recommend duraspark (or some derivation thereof) instead of Pertronix.

Am I really at a disadvantage if I go back to Points for a while if not permanently?

 

[Asa]

which Petronix setup do you have?
the first batch had their share of problems, but i ran one for a good two and a half years with no problems, and i know others here have ran them for much longer than that with no problems
so as long as you got one new, i wouldn't count that as the problem


when i swapped to Petronix, i noticed that it cranked easier, ran smoother, and i got a little bump in MPG, if you want to swap to points to see if that's the problem, go for it, but unless it was installed incorrectly i doubt that'll solve it

 

[Anonymous]

asa67_stang:
I have the original pertronix that i purchased new from NPD about two months ago....I've dealt with pertronix in the past, in fact, I had one in a '71 mustang for two years w/no problems. We've had them in two other cars, I know that one original (new) one gave us problems so they swapped it and gave us a Pertronix II instead at no extra cost. They even told us that "some units are defective."

I agree that when they function properly, they are GREAT units...but I just feel as though they aren't the most reliable option, and i do believe that some people on here would agree that some or a lot of the Pertronix units are defective....perhaps I'll try one more, but something tells me it's a bad idea!

 

[Asa]

i was under the impression that Petronix knew about their original ones failing, so they fixed that problem

as to the Duraspark II system, check the top of this section i believe there's a sticky dedicated to the swap
it involves dropping in a new dizzy as well as some wiring