Sunday afternoon and no spark.... 440 6 bbl

[P Dubya]

Started it, ran for about 15 seconds and died. Attempted to restart it with no luck. Pulled a plug wire and found a spare plug. Nothing.... Coil only has only 3.5 volts with key on. Shouldn't it be about double that?

 

[RemCharger]

Yes. B+ cranking, and 8-10 v running.
Check ballast, connections , especially the blue white wire in the bulkhead connector

 

[P Dubya]

Have not had a lot of time to look into this but what I have done is poke around a bit under the cap... What I found makes me think that I possibly have a worn out distributor... It does have OEM electronic ignition, It looks to me like the reluctor wheel has come into contact with the pickup. It had zero clearance and calls for .008-.010''. Does it make sense to try to find a spare distributor and set of points to swap out and basically hot wire this to see If this is where my problem lies?

 

[cosgig]

Have not had a lot of time to look into this but what I have done is poke around a bit under the cap... What I found makes me think that I possibly have a worn out distributor... It does have OEM electronic ignition, It looks to me like the reluctor wheel has come into contact with the pickup. It had zero clearance and calls for .008-.010''. Does it make sense to try to find a spare distributor and set of points to swap out and basically hot wire this to see If this is where my problem lies?

Try resetting your reluctor gap and tighten the reluctor down tight. With brass feeler guages of course. Might be all you need.

 

[P Dubya]

I did set gap again to .008'' with no luck....

 

[kiwigtx]

Started it, ran for about 15 seconds and died. Attempted to restart it with no luck. Pulled a plug wire and found a spare plug. Nothing.... Coil only has only 3.5 volts with key on. Shouldn't it be about double that?

Check for loose wires on the ballast resistor - or a burnt terminal.

 

[kiwigtx]

With brass feeler guages of course.

Plastic ones work also.

 

[Daves69]

Check for loose wires on the ballast resistor - or a burnt terminal.

................and bulkhead connector.

 

[cosgig]

Plastic ones work also.

Hmm, I was not aware that they made them in plastic. This I must investigate!

 

[kiwigtx]

Hmm, I was not aware that they made them in plastic. This I must investigate!

RS Components. Hard to get and pricey, but they work.

 

[cosgig]

RS Components. Hard to get and pricey, but they work.

Hops had some brass ones for sale not long ago, easy to get and he’s a fast shipper!

 

[P Dubya]

Ok... so I had a little bit of time tonight to do some investigation..... I tested for full battery voltage at pins 1 and 2 of the ECM harness and all tested well. Ballast resistor also seems good. As soon as harness was plugged into ECM I can only get about 3.5 volts to + terminal on coil. I had a new ECM and changed it out and now I can get full battery voltage at coil so I thought that I had found my problem.
A quick key on crank of the engine shows me I still have no spark at plug or straight off of a screw driver out of the plug boot.
A key on crank with a test light shows no on /off flash on the test light which still leads me to think I have a problem within the distributor reluctor/pickup. Shouldn't the test light flash as the reluctor passes the pickup? Would it be safe to remove the coil wire from the distributor and see if I have spark from wire previous to being attached to distributor?

 

[kiwigtx]

Hops had some brass ones for sale not long ago, easy to get and he’s a fast shipper!

This is not a For Sale or Wanted advert....

 

[Billccm]

Most of these I have trouble shot will give one or two quick sparks when the power is applied, regardless of reluctor position.

I hate to tell you many of these modules are dead right out of the box. Was speaking with a fellow Mopar owner the other day who had gone through three of these before he found a good one.

 

[P Dubya]

Most of these I have trouble shot will give one or two quick sparks when the power is applied, regardless of reluctor position.

I hate to tell you many of these modules are dead right out of the box. Was speaking with a fellow Mopar owner the other day who had gone through three of these before he found a good one.

Thanks! It's got me baffled....

 

[Geoff 2]

Why did the air gap in the dist close up [ no spark on that cyl when that happens ]?????

I would be looking for something loose, shaft &/or busing worn.

 

[Daves69]

Have not had a lot of time to look into this but what I have done is poke around a bit under the cap... What I found makes me think that I possibly have a worn out distributor... It does have OEM electronic ignition, It looks to me like the reluctor wheel has come into contact with the pickup. It had zero clearance and calls for .008-.010''. Does it make sense to try to find a spare distributor and set of points to swap out and basically hot wire this to see If this is where my problem lies?

There's this if it can help rule out the dist.......

Easy electronic distributor check.

See that a lot of people are confused on electronic distributors, pretty easy check to see if the distributor is working properly. Pull the distributor out leave the pickup wires hooked up and spin the shaft, the coil should fire. Pretty easy...

www.forabodiesonly.com

 

[P Dubya]

Well.... I went back to basics or at least I think so. Coil will barely throw a spark to a grounded test light. So until I can get another one I think I'm dead in the water.

 

[GTXDAN]

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[Road Grabber]

Make sure you have a good ground for the ECM. Also check that there are no breaks in the (black and red?) wires leading to the pickup. Sometimes they wear apart inside the distributor where they are bent to fit inside the distributor housing. There could be a broken connection even though the insulation is intact. I found this one time for a guy at the Syracuse Nationals.

Of course switching out distributor if you have one would rule out problems with the distributor.
But if you don’t have a good ground for the ECM it won’t start. Had that problem myself.