No fire on 1st cylinder

[Herbykw]

I have a 360 sb in my 75 Doba. I recently found out I am not firing on the 1st cylinder. I changed the cap, rotor and wires and checked my plugs. No luck. How do I go about narrowing down this problem from here. I'm not a great mechanic, but I have been learning how to do most things myself. The intake manifold is a weiand, and switched to a Holley 4 barrel. It starts and idles fine still. Is my distributer bad?

 

[69Bee]

Does the cylinder have compression? What does the plug look like?

 

[70rr-brian]

Pull the number one plug. After you have it out reconnect the plug wire...hold it up with a pair of gloves around the boot of the wire and have someone start the car and see if the plug is sparking....if it is check compression in cylinder....if it isnt then work your way back to the distributer.

 

[Herbykw]

I will check to see if the plug is gettin spark by pulling the plug. I hooked up my timing light to it and nothing. All other cylinders set off the timin light. The plugs were dark but thts it. I cleaned them up and re-gapped them. A friend changed the plugs while I was still on active duty, won't trust him to do anything again.

 

[67 coronet]

what kind of distributor are you running.you could have a bad spot on the pickup inside the distributor to cause #1 cyl to not fire.take a look below the rotor and make sure there is no damage to the pickup assembly.

 

[69Bee]

Check that the metal clip in each end of the plug wire did not get ripped out when changing the plugs.

 

[tpodwdog]

check the dist cap and make sure all the metal contacts are present. dont make any sence that just number 1 isnt firing.

 

[Supershafts]

Sounds like the reluctor is AFU, you can change it, or flip it over.

Use a small puller and don't drop the roll pin. . .

 

[Hemirunner]

The only thing you didn't replace is the plug. I'd look there. Swap it with cylinder #3 and see if it doesn't fire in that hole. Relucter AFU.... lol....

 

[tpodwdog]

I will check to see if the plug is gettin spark by pulling the plug. I hooked up my timing light to it and nothing. All other cylinders set off the timin light. The plugs were dark but thts it. I cleaned them up and re-gapped them. A friend changed the plugs while I was still on active duty, won't trust him to do anything again.

if the timing light blinks on all cylinders except #1...that stands to reason that there is something going on in the distributor.....UNLESS.....the plug itself it NOT grounding in the head.....almost an impossibility....but possible nonetheless.

im willing to bet theres something going on with the dist. cap...it makes ABSOLUTELY no sence that all cylinders are setting off the timing light except #1.

TRY THIS.......start the car up in PITCH DARKNESS....and watch for sparks around the dist cap. its possible you have a cracked cap and #1 is grounding out very close to the dist to the block...or head...or SOMETHING!

 

[Supershafts]

I believe you have a reluctor issue

Try this move the dist one wire ahead and move the wires all back one on the cap and see if it fires 1 now and kills 8