Broken down college kid
Do you have a voltmeter/ test lamp?
As Aaron said earlier, thanks for attempting to help him. Looks like Dad (me) is going to be making a trip south tomorrow. Aaron is only an hour and a half from home, but when you are dealing with car trouble, it might as well be a day and a half.
He's getting it towed back to his apartment today, and I'll take all the tools I think we might need - including a test light and multi-meter. I could hear over the phone while he was trying to start the Dart that it has good, solid cranking power - it's just not firing. The thing he glossed over in his narrative is that it was running - idling just fine - when he killed it that last time in the driveway.
Am I correct in stating that the alternator is not directly involved in the starting system? If it could start, it would be able to do it with a bad alternator, as long as the battery is stout enough. Although the alternator tested "bad" and is now replaced, it appears that it was only one piece of the overall puzzle.
With the coil not producing a spark (even a new one), where do we go from here? Until I can get down there tomorrow with the test tools, I instructed Aaron to start tracing wires back from the coil to look for broken, melted, frayed, corroded, or other obviously bad conditions. What is it we should be checking for with the test light or multi-meter? Also, since he tried throwing a new voltage regulator into the mix with no success, is that a clue as to the likely remaining suspects?
I do have a brand new ECU from Aaron's Duster project car that I will take with me. It is one of the orange ones we got for his 360 V8, but the one in his slant six Dart is a black one. Is there any problem with swapping them out, if it comes down to it?
One last thought... and I don't know how reasonable it is, but could it be something as simple as the coil wire breaking down between the coil and the distributor cap?
Anyone else with some suggestions before I leave in the morning???
Thanks for any input,
Jerry
