No spark

-

dartfreak75

Restore it, Dont part it!
Joined
Aug 10, 2011
Messages
11,571
Reaction score
9,482
Location
Virginia
Well I attempted my break in today to no avail. I have no spark. I have power to the coil positive, power to the coil wire and power to the cap. But nothing to the dissy I checked the the wires going into the dissy nothing there. So I checked the ecu plug in and it's got power to the dissy. Im not sure where im loosing it? Here is a pick of the plug that goes into the ecu and what has power. And checked the ground its good I even sanded off my new paint.

Screenshot_20210120-172856_Gallery.jpg


20210120_190136.jpg


20210120_175523.jpg
 
Did you check for continuity through the connector ends?
 
There IS NO power to the distributor. The distributor generates power via the pickup coil and magnets. You should be able to put your meter on low AC volts and connect to the dist. pickup, spin the shaft or crank the engine and it should generate about 1V AC. Those connectors can be trouble as there is no real current there, so ANY corrosion will stop the trigger signal. Examine the connector with a light for corrosion, and work it in/ out several times to "feel" for tightness and to scrub the terminals.

Turn the key to 'run.' Separate the dist connector and take hold of the engine harness end. "Rig" a test gap or plug to the coil tower. Touch the bare terminal of the connector repeatedly to engine ground. You should get one single "SNAP" spark each time

Reconnect. Rig your meter to coil+ and ground. You should get full battery voltage at the coil when cranking. When key is in "run" coil should read, say, 6-10V. Not more. Full 12V in "run" indicates coil is not drawing current

ECU MUST MUST be grounded.
 
The dissy connector ends?

Did you try disconnecting the distributor and with the key on tap the exposed contact of the distributor connector on the harness side to ground?
You should have a coil spark for each tap.
This would tell you if your ignition module works or not.
If not, check the distributor connector contacts and reluctor gap.

Ha I see Del beat me to it.:D
 
Check the air gap on your dizzy with a brass feeler gauge I set mine to .008” I believe. If it’s too far out you could have a no fire issue.
 
I don't have any power to either connector end. Dont quite follow what you mean by spark at coil?
 
There IS NO power to the distributor. The distributor generates power via the pickup coil and magnets. You should be able to put your meter on low AC volts and connect to the dist. pickup, spin the shaft or crank the engine and it should generate about 1V AC. Those connectors can be trouble as there is no real current there, so ANY corrosion will stop the trigger signal. Examine the connector with a light for corrosion, and work it in/ out several times to "feel" for tightness and to scrub the terminals.

Turn the key to 'run.' Separate the dist connector and take hold of the engine harness end. "Rig" a test gap or plug to the coil tower. Touch the bare terminal of the connector repeatedly to engine ground. You should get one single "SNAP" spark each time

Reconnect. Rig your meter to coil+ and ground. You should get full battery voltage at the coil when cranking. When key is in "run" coil should read, say, 6-10V. Not more. Full 12V in "run" indicates coil is not drawing current

ECU MUST MUST be grounded.
Ecu is grounded you can see in the picture i scrubbed it down to bare metal and did the same on the back of the ecu. Used new shinny bolts. I am getting like 10.6 at the coil and coil wire. I don't understand what you and trailboss are telling me to do. So I run a lead from the ground to the the connector that runs into the ecu?
 
Go get a point dist. Drop it in. Wire neg side of coil to dist. Jumper positive side of coil to batt positive.

The coil will get hot and probably get damaged as will the points but should last more than long enough to brake in the engine, especially if the RPM are in the 2000 range.
 
Ecu is grounded you can see in the picture i scrubbed it down to bare metal and did the same on the back of the ecu. Used new shinny bolts. I am getting like 10.6 at the coil and coil wire. I don't understand what you and trailboss are telling me to do. So I run a lead from the ground to the the connector that runs into the ecu?

We are trying to get you to test the system without the dist. Hook the entire system up, ECU grounded. All connectors hooked up

Now "rig" a spark test gap such as a spark plug from the coil tower to ground, this is so you can see if you have spark.

Next disconnect the dist. two wire connector. Turn the key to "run" so system is powered. Now take ahold of the connector half which leads to the firewall harness and not the dist. The connector has a bare terminal. If you touch that bare terminal to ground, it should make one single spark at your test gap. This shows the system is OK except for the distributor

You need to run the voltage checks for three reasons
1..........to see if the system is getting power with key in 'run'
2...........to see if the coil is drawing current. If the ECU box has lost power or ground or is bad, the coil NEG will be at full battery voltage. This shows no current is being drawn. Checking voltage at coil POS and it should be no more than say, 10V, this also shows current is being drawn. This is normal and what you want
3...Checking coil POS voltage "in start" shows the system is getting power during cranking. There are two circuits involved from the ignition switch
 
We are trying to get you to test the system without the dist. Hook the entire system up, ECU grounded. All connectors hooked up
Thanks I understand that I just don't don't understand what you are telling me to do. What connector am I grounding?
 
Turn the key to 'run.' Separate the dist connector and take hold of the engine harness end. "Rig" a test gap or plug to the coil tower. Touch the bare terminal of the connector repeatedly to engine ground. You should get one single "SNAP" spark each time
This is the part I don't understand. What do you mean by test gap. And what bare terminal are you referring too?
 
Thanks del for some reason there was a glitch in the matrix and I only saw the first sentence of post 10. Im not sure why. When I quoted you what's in my quote is all that was shown!? Bezare. Now I can see it all it makes more sense lol. I have 10.6 to the pos side of the coil and 0 to the negative. I'm getting like 11.8 to the plugs on the ecu. I will try the test you and trailbeast posted and get back
 
Thanks del for some reason there was a glitch in the matrix and I only saw the first sentence of post 10. Im not sure why. When I quoted you what's in my quote is all that was shown!? Bezare. Now I can see it all it makes more sense lol. I have 10.6 to the pos side of the coil and 0 to the negative. I'm getting like 11.8 to the plugs on the ecu. I will try the test you and trailbeast posted and get back

LOL. You are too fast. I put "standby............" in the one post hoping you'd catch that while I was "feverishly" editing the photo
 
LOL. You are too fast. I put "standby............" in the one post hoping you'd catch that while I was "feverishly" editing the photo
Oh ok lol thanks for the help really do appreciate it . Sorry i didnt even notice the standby lol
 
Only thing I can add is make sure your battery is fully charged and in good shape.
 
Only thing I can add is make sure your battery is fully charged and in good shape.
The battery did die during cranking. It turned over 4 or 5 times and I didn't get nothing so I stopped did some testing and tried again and stopped checked the connections tried again the battery was cranking slow so I put it on charger. Let it charge awhile and tried again still nothing. Then while testing for spark the starter stopped working, its in the relay because I can jump the starter with a screwdriver and it spins over like noones business but nothing with the key.
 
Yeh you cannot test like that. The "default" is about 10V cranking. If the battery is under that voltage when cranking, you likely will not get dependable spark, or enough cranking speed.
 
Yeh you cannot test like that. The "default" is about 10V cranking. If the battery is under that voltage when cranking, you likely will not get dependable spark, or enough cranking speed.
I had 13 at the battery after I charged it. Im not sure what's going on i think I got alot of problems just running together. I will charge the battery up overnight and try again I gotta work the next 5 days so that will give me a chance to think about it and regroup. I will continue to read and study up and maybe next week I can get it started
 
Checking the bat voltage immediately after charging will show a higher higher voltage [ surface charge ]. You need to let the bat sit for a few hours & re-test. Fully charged battery is 12.5-12.7 volts. This is not a complete test, as the bat can measure OK but fail [ lose voltage ] under load.
 
-
Back
Top