No Start Mystery

I finally figured this out but instead of spilling the beans I’ll let you guys have a crack at it. Here’s how it unfolded:

Saturday – drove all over the hills looking for good location for bear baiting station. Some good off roading through the brush.
Sunday – drove to chosen location to setup. Hot and sunny (ok high 70’s is hot here). Jeep was hard to start several times when hot. We’re thinking vapor lock?
Wednesday – cool and raining, drove out to check for bear activity. About 12 miles of pavement then 7 miles of muddy road plus a mile down the bear trail. No bears and almost no start. Took 20 minutes to get it going. On the way home twice the motor cut out for a second or two. Almost home & the motor just died, coasted to a stop. Restarted ok and made it home.
Thursday – no start in driveway.

I’ll post some more of the story later. . . .

 

Dauntlessitis??? I could guess for a while but sounds like fuel delivery.

 

I'd bet it's either gas or spark...

(Tim deftly displays his firm grasp of the obvious).

 

More of the story.

Friday – swing by NAPA and pick up new fuel filter and HEI coil. Have oldest daughter crank the key while dribbling fuel down the carb. No start. Battery & starting system are good (go optima!). Remove fuel line at carb and crank – plenty of fuel into the jar. Pull the top off carb, float bowl has fuel. Worked the throttle to check accel pump – two good squirters. Install new HEI coil. No start. Grab a sparkplug from the garage and plug it into one of the sparkplug wires & crank the starter. We got spark while cranking. Try several other spark plug wires. We got spark. Put a screwdriver in the end of a plug wire and ground it to the intake manifold, while cranking the starter, “drag” the screwdriver away from ground. The spark drags out to over a half inch long. Seems like pretty good spark. Switch to the spare HEI module. So we have fuel and spark but still no start?????????

To be continued . . . .

 

water in the fuel maybe, but i think you might have caught that when you opened the carb and lines.


my other guess would be a faulty ignition switch.



ooh ooh ooh, or a bad selenoid, spark when cranking, but not a reliable connection when running.



ok I'm done.

 

Timing?

 

This is my guess too. Almost seems like someone moved some wires on the cap...

 

I had that thought also. Didn't really suspect that someone tampered with it but I did check the distributer hold down to try and make sure something had not moved. It was tight.

I also had the water in gas idea. Put in some red heet but that didn't help. I also used a different gas source for the carb dribble test.

I'll post some more before lunch.

 

I'm with you on the switch but I don't understand the bad solenoid idea? It was cranking good.

Here's more:


Saturday – had to drive the pickup to check bear station, not an easy trail so had to walk in half a mile. :-(

Sunday – This no start problem started the day after off roading and driving through a bunch of brush and small trees (no damage was done to the landscape!). Maybe something broke loose under there. Fiddled around with the wiring down near the starter. Inspected the fuel lines. Things look normal. Maybe we’re not getting good voltage to the coil (maybe we’re grasping at straws?). Whip out the volt meter and connect to the wire going to the + side of the coil. Reading is about 12.6 volts with the key in the “on” position. So we do have power to the coil . . . so the switch is good??

To be continued . . . .

 

Fuel, spark. If it were me, I would check your timing. Maybe when you were having trouble starting it, it jumped timing, I don't know. But it sure seems like you have the basics just need to hook them up.

 

Corrosion on the end of the ignition wires making bad connection at cap and or plugs.

 

faulty points?

 

I thought about this one at the time. Seems like there would have been an "event" or at least a noise I would of noticed. And, I replaced the timing chain about 3 years ago & it probably only has less than 2000 miles on it.

 

I like this one. The plug wires are really old. I did buy new wires at NAPA one time but when I took them home I found the the ohm reading was higher on the new ones compared to the old ones. So I took them back. I think the old ones are very good quality. And, I use the silicone goop in them to keep em clean.

 

HEI, no points.

 

Intake manifold not bolted down? (I'm really reaching here)

 

Ooh, clogged exhaust.

 

corroded rotor tip
loose rotor tang
bad cap ????
loose nut behind the wheel ???? (no offense)
grasping like others

 

Is it a burn rotor and it grounding out?