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Starts but dies in gear

Scrappy

FBBO Gold Member
FBBO Gold Member
Local time
6:55 AM
Joined
Apr 13, 2019
Messages
7
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3
Location
Red bud Il
I have a 69 coronet rt 440 auto.Bout a year ago car started to die when put in gear. Has mp elec dist.Changed ecu and it ran good.Now it’s doing it again,swapped ecu,coil,and ballistic resistor.Checked all my wires and connections.Any ideas?
 
How did you obtain a ballistic resistor? I thought only the Military had access to those!
 
Spark plug wires....
Years back, my brother had a slant six '78 Dodge truck. It ran fine at idle but would just bog and die when put into Drive or Reverse. I swapped in a distributor cap and wires from another car and it was instantly improved.

My own '75 Power Wagon had a rough idle and it would suddenly stall for no obvious reason. The tip of the rotor was melted off!
Good luck.
 
Wires rotor and cap have less than 500 miles on them
 
The converter and automatic transmission place a load on the engine even at idle. This additional load is showing that there is a weakness in the system somewhere. The ECU does need to be well grounded. I have started adding an additional ground wire to my electronic ignition cars.
 
Had this exact same symptom on my brother's Coronet with a 273. Prior to the car being delivered to his house, the PO put a electronic conversion kit in it and they had to have the idle rpm too high to keep it running. After I did an engine refresh, same thing. After checking virtually everything I took the distributor out and spun the shaft by hand noticing the reluctor had a slight eccentricity, enough to cause it to die in drive. I gapped it to spec using the closest tip and it's been running perfect for 9 years. Just something to check.
 
I’ll check the distributor but it seems weird to have done this twice about a year apart.
 
I’ll check the distributor but it seems weird to have done this twice about a year apart.
At least you can eliminate it as a possible cause if it checks out ok.
 
Is this a stock or hot rod engine?
Vacuum leak?
Carburetor problem?
How much idle vacuum?
How lumpy is the cam?
 
Stock eng.checked dist gap and ground wired the ecu.Doesn’t die in gear but runs rough.No vacuum leaks.Didn’t check carb vacuum.Thanks to all who replied
 
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