73 Charger cranking but not starting

[Don Frelier]

YES, very strange. It ran perfectly over the summer and fall. I have spark all down the line, not a thick/blue but it does snap. A funny thing I found last night is that as I cranked and added fuel (some by bottle, some with accel pump) that I thought I had flooded it. So, I took the plugs out once again and this time noticed that there were differences between them. Four were very wet, two were very black sooty, and 2 were dry as a bone!! (they were all removed, cleaned and dried before performing that latest test) I haven't mentioned this before but the fuel at the log is reading 6 to 7 psi (which is similar to our old racecar)

Plug variance like that is really odd? Especially considering you have not got it to run?
Did you recheck the firing order after changing the plugs? Like a 5-7 swap or 2-4 swap at the plugs for example?
I did this once accidentally on a 318, ran pretty shitty on 6 cylinders.
I'm assuming the timing and orientation of the plug wires on the cap are correct.

 

[73 STP]

yep, I have the plug wires marked so I don't do that (has happened to me as well over the years...LOL) I actually checked the timing, it so happened to be lined up on the balancer and peeked inside the #1 and the piston was on top, rotor pointed to #1 as well. I will double-check the wires on the cap, good point.

was just tracing the yellow START wire to the starter relay (today at lunch) which I have not done for some reason...LOL For some reason it is only picking up about 10v in the START key position...

here's the question...WHY?? Doesn't the "I" terminal connect some way in the starter relay itself?? I have 12+ volts at the battery terminal on the relay at all times, why wouldn't the "I" terminal??

 

[Gold Rush]

If you have 12.4 volts on the yellow wire from the ignition switch (at the column connector) and only 10 volts at the start relay; I'd be checking out the wire and connections between the two places. Somewhere along the way you must have a bad connection causing voltage drop.

 

[Don Frelier]

here's the question...WHY?? Doesn't the "I" terminal connect some way in the starter relay itself?? I have 12+ volts at the battery terminal on the relay at all times, why wouldn't the "I" terminal??

The 12 Volt terminal on the relay powers both the starter solenoid and essentially everything else in the car except the starter motor.
The "I" terminal is powered when you turn the "I"gniton to the Start position, then the relay closes and sends the battery terminal to the "S" terminal or Starter solenoid.
When the starter solenoid is energized the starter motor then kicks out a shaft and makes its own contact from the battery cable down at the starter to power the motor.
The starter itself is a form of heavy duty relay and an electric motor.

 

[73 STP]

so the "I" terminal really only energizes the "switch" to allow the Batt term and the "S" terminal to make contact to crank the engine...it is the brown (ign 2) and blue (ign 1) that fires the "spark", correct? I will do some more testing and tracking tonight...thanks guys...

 

[73 STP]

ok folks, thanks for all the great replies...did some more testing over the weekend. I finally got 12v to the coil (not sure why the jumper didn't work) by placing the BL wire on the 4 post ballast resistor directly opposite the BR wire on the 1.5 ohm side. (I know, it had a jumper already in place) I also got a new set of plugs. It fired and ran on the first crank. Not sure which was the "fix", but I am smiling! Still puzzles me how something could have happened just sitting for the short time it did. Maybe the jumper wire on the ballast jiggled loose and wasnt making good contact at my splice? IDK but thanks again! This is an awesome group.