Barracuda not starting after being parked for five years

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phf

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Hello all,

It has been a long time since I've posted here, or did any work on my car, but here goes.
I have a 67 Barracuda with a 5.2l Magnum in it. Mopar Electronic ignition with an MSD coil. The engine ran when it was parked five years ago. After much moving around, I finally got my car back and set out to start her today. The engine turns over, but there is no spark. I put a multimeter on the coil with the key in the "on" position and I'm only getting 4.5 volts, meanwhile the battery shows 11.8.
Please help me figure this out.

Many thanks,
Stan
 
Try jumping out the ignition switch just to see if it starts. Wire from battery positive to coil positive and then crank. If it starts, then it may be either the ignition switch or the ballast. This is an easy test.
 
Try jumping out the ignition switch just to see if it starts. Wire from battery positive to coil positive and then crank. If it starts, then it may be either the ignition switch or the ballast. This is an easy test.
Great advice. I'll try it here in a little bit.
 
Did you mean coil during cranking AJ ?
No, battery.
11.2 is nearly dead as far as batteries are rated. Perhaps during cranking the voltage falls to 9 or 9.5.. With the starter taking all the electrons, there will be nothing left over for the coil.
 
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No, battery.
11.2 is nearly dead as far as batteries are rated. Perhaps during cranking the the voltage falls to 9 or 9.5.. With the starter taking all the electrons, there will be nothing left over for the coil.
True. Its a crude test (I think is in the service manual) but when the voltage drops that low during cranking, its a good indicator battery power is very low. Put a charger on that battery (at 2 amps if its switch selected rate) for at least a few hours, maybe even overnight.
 
Try jumping out the ignition switch just to see if it starts. Wire from battery positive to coil positive and then crank. If it starts, then it may be either the ignition switch or the ballast. This is an easy test.

Ran a wire directly from battery + to coil +. Not starting.

No, battery.
11.2 is nearly dead as far as batteries are rated. Perhaps during cranking the the voltage falls to 9 or 9.5.. With the starter taking all the electrons, there will be nothing left over for the coil.

Had my wife work the key while I hung around the battery with the multimeter. During cranking, the battery holds 10 volts.

Is that based on using a spark tester?

Unfortunately, I don't have a spark tester. I held the number 1 wire with the plug in it on the exhaust manifold while my wife cranked the engine. No spark was visible.
 
Well, 10v is good news.
But your spark-test sucks.
Pull the coil wire out of the cap instead, and stick something in the end that will stay in there. Then near-ground that thingy, about 1/4 inch airgap or less will do it, now crank it.Waitaminute!!, make sure there is no gasoline anywhere near it and especially not under it.
Now crank it; you should see a stream of sparks. If you don't,
check that the rotor is turning. If yes
then hotwire the coil with full 12 volts from the battery and key off. Take that buster! If still no spark,
then clean the ground between the ECU case and whatever it is screwed to. This has to to be grounded to the battery. Your battery has to be grounded to the chassi to complete the circuit.
If still no spark, check that the reluctor gap is somewhere between a bit more than zero and less than .025; I think the spec is .008, and if it is then
ohm out the pick-up. IDK the spec on that, maybe 350 ish .And if you got that,
then check the coil resistances; IDK the specs on that either but look for about 1ohm on the primary side and more than 1000 times higher on the secondary.If you got that,
then replace the Ecu, and try again.


Hold on, I made the assumption that the ballast was ok. If it is not, then the 12v jumper wire may not feed back to the ECU power-up pin. So the whole entire test detailed above is null. There are two ways around this; 1) just put a new ballast in there or 2) put another jumper either; across the ballast to tie the two sides together, or put another jumper from the Coil + to the ECU power-up pin.
My apologies.
After you get it sparking; remove all jumpers and try it with the key. If it works, put the coilwire back into the coil, and continue
 
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Well, 10v is good news.
But your spark-test sucks.

I can't argue with that.

A good friend, who for some reason is not on this forum even though he has a Demon, said it might be the orange box. Is there a way to check it?
 
Charge the battery to full voltage on a trickle . then , as was previously suggested , put jumper from bat to coil . If nothing happens check coil , if coil is o.k., check spark at dizzy . Now, the bat is o.k., the coil is o.k. and the dizzy is o.k. Get a test light , they are cheap, test the input side of the ballast while cranking. If you have juice, check the output side . this tells you if the ballast is o.k. If you don't have juice at the ballast , check the ignition switch . Check both sides of the switch . If you have juice coming in but none going out at cranking , it's the switch . Check the fuse . Make sure the batt is fully charged . If the batt has been sitting for a long time it may never come back enough to function properly . for long term storage I suggest a battery tender , great stuff .
 
Unfortunately, I don't have a spark tester. I held the number 1 wire with the plug in it on the exhaust manifold while my wife cranked the engine. No spark was visible.
That's fine. I thought you were working alone since you mentioned waiting 'til your wife was available to help.

Hold on, I made the assumption that the ballast was ok.
You were correct to make that assumption. Phf measured voltage at the coil when the ignition is in run. It shows a drop, and thats to be expected.
There is a possibility that the ignition 2 wire is not connected so during start power isn't gettin gto the coil even though during run it is.
Phf, place the voltmeter so you can see it while turning the key to start (or ask your wife to help again). The coil should get battery voltage.

If its the original '67 harness, there's a brown wire to the ballast resistor from the ignition switch start position.
Its crimped onto the same connector as the blue wire leading to the coil.
 
No spark from my experiences leads to the Mopar ECU Box. 5 years? i hope you parked the car with no gas in the tank.
 
I can't argue with that.

A good friend, who for some reason is not on this forum even though he has a Demon, said it might be the orange box. Is there a way to check it?
Checking the ECU, AFAIK is by process of elimination, as in my earlier post; it(the case) must be grounded back to the battery; through the sheetmetal is fine. Usually; passenger-side apron to core-support to jumper to battery negative. There should also be a redundant ground strap from the rear of the passenger-side head to the firewall, but this has nothing to do with your problem....... unless both grounds are faulty!
You could build a tester; all you need is a spare Distributor, a coil,a ballast. and a battery .......... which are already under the hood. You just need to verify that they are all in good working order.Once you have done the diagnostic a time or two and have built the jumper wires, it only takes a few minutes to run thru the tests. I have done them on the side of the hiway several times. It was never the ECU, and since I installed the big yellow SuperCoil, it has never been the coil. For me, if it quits while driving, it's either the ECU ground return path, or the pick-up. If it won't start it has always been the ballast resistor.
That Ballast is always cooking itself, that is how it works. Eventually it just cooks itself to death, or the connections to it go bad. If you own a car with this system on it you will always carry a spare.
 
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Does the dizzy cap have brass terminals or aluminum? I’ve seen the aluminum corrode enough that I had no spark.
 
Ok, don't laugh at me folk's , shoot some oil (tea spoon) in on top of the pistons and see if that wakes it up and gives it compression
Or just get some compression readings :lol:, I did the oil fix on two engines that set and it woke them right up.. True story
 
Charge the battery to full voltage on a trickle . then , as was previously suggested , put jumper from bat to coil . If nothing happens check coil , if coil is o.k., check spark at dizzy . Now, the bat is o.k., the coil is o.k. and the dizzy is o.k. Get a test light , they are cheap, test the input side of the ballast while cranking. If you have juice, check the output side . this tells you if the ballast is o.k. If you don't have juice at the ballast , check the ignition switch . Check both sides of the switch . If you have juice coming in but none going out at cranking , it's the switch . Check the fuse . Make sure the batt is fully charged . If the batt has been sitting for a long time it may never come back enough to function properly . for long term storage I suggest a battery tender , great stuff .

Great stuff 383Scampman. Definitely gives me something to do on my next day off. The battery is about three months old and is used almost daily in my truck, so it's not like it has been sitting for a long time.

That's fine. I thought you were working alone since you mentioned waiting 'til your wife was available to help.


You were correct to make that assumption. Phf measured voltage at the coil when the ignition is in run. It shows a drop, and thats to be expected.
There is a possibility that the ignition 2 wire is not connected so during start power isn't gettin gto the coil even though during run it is.
Phf, place the voltmeter so you can see it while turning the key to start (or ask your wife to help again). The coil should get battery voltage.

If its the original '67 harness, there's a brown wire to the ballast resistor from the ignition switch start position.
Its crimped onto the same connector as the blue wire leading to the coil.

I'll check it out, Mattax. Just to clarify, if, under cranking, the coil still shows less than battery voltage, I have a bad ignition switch?

No spark from my experiences leads to the Mopar ECU Box. 5 years? i hope you parked the car with no gas in the tank.

Yes sir. All the fluids came out five years ago and fresh oil and antifreeze went in yesterday. I haven't put gas in the tank yet, but I have a hose drawing gas from a can.

Checking the ECU, AFAIK is by process of elimination, as in my earlier post; it(the case) must be grounded back to the battery; through the sheetmetal is fine. Usually; passenger-side apron to core-support to jumper to battery negative. There should also be a redundant ground strap from the rear of the passenger-side head to the firewall, but this has nothing to do with your problem....... unless both grounds are faulty!
You could build a tester; all you need is a spare Distributor, a coil,a ballast. and a battery .......... which are already under the hood. You just need to verify that they are all in good working order.Once you have done the diagnostic a time or two and have built the jumper wires, it only takes a few minutes to run thru the tests. I have done them on the side of the hiway several times. It was never the ECU, and since I installed the big yellow SuperCoil, it has never been the coil. For me, if it quits while driving, it's either the ECU ground return path, or the pick-up. If it won't start it has always been the ballast resistor.
That Ballast is always cooking itself, that is how it works. Eventually it just cooks itself to death, or the connections to it go bad. If you own a car with this system on it you will always carry a spare.

AJ/FormS, great advice. Next day I have off, I plan on systematically checking connections and making sure that all the grounds are good. The car sat in a car port, so it's very likely some corrosion built up on connections.

Does the dizzy cap have brass terminals or aluminum? I’ve seen the aluminum corrode enough that I had no spark.

Brass terminals. That was one of the first things I did, is check for corrosion under the cap.

For all who are wondering, the dizzy is spinning.

As I said before, my free time is gone for this week, so unfortunately no more messing around in the garage until my next free day. Hopefully I'll make some headway next weekend.

Thank you all for the advice.
 
I'll check it out, Mattax. Just to clarify, if, under cranking, the coil still shows less than battery voltage, I have a bad ignition switch?
It means there is a poor connection of wire, which possibly could be at or in the switch. And although that's a problem, even if its just 5 -6 Volts, I think that should be enough to saturate the coil at cranking speeds.
* As long as there is voltage across the coil, there will be current flow as long as there is a connection to ground. Cranking speeds are slow, so it has more time to induce a field in the secondary.
Checking for a break in the primary windings is easy. With the ignition switch off, no power at the coil, you can check the primary windings by measuring the resistance from the primary + to the primary -.
* That said, the circuits are designed for the start position on the switch to allow full battery voltage at the coil. So if during cranking the battery positive is at 10 Volts, all of the wires to the coil positive should be at 10 Volts.
>> When the key is in the run position, power to the coil goes through the ballast resistor which reduces the voltage. When the engine is running, the alternator will be supplying power at roughly 14 Volts, the ballast resistor will drop that to roughly 7 volts.
>> Keep in mind that when the points or equivelant are open, there is no current flow through the coil. No current flowing means there will be no voltage drop. Depedning on the meter, voltage measurement of the coil + taken when the engine is running may average or fluctuate rapidly.
 
Diagram of the '67 ignition and power feeds.

With the Key in RUN, power flows to the wires marked IGNITION RUN and ACCESSORY.
upload_2018-12-2_14-32-39.png


In the START position, the battery feeds IGNITION 2 and the STARTER relay wires.
upload_2018-12-2_14-50-24.png
 
So, I finished my adulting stuff early, and went to check over the connections. The ECU had a bunch of corrosion under it. Cleaned it up and she fired right up!

Thank you all for your input. This is great stuff to keep in mind for the next project I get, or when this one decides to not run again.
 
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