1976 motorhome please help

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1970swing

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Hello,
I know this isn't a motorhome forum, but it is a 1976 360 and hoping I can get some advice. I purchased the MH and drove it about 150 miles home and it ran great. Previous owner had unhooked egr. Other then that all smog stuff still there(I'm in California:() So I take it down to smog shop and it fails. Tech tells me air fuel mixture way off. So I adjusted 2bbl stock holley air/fuel mixture to stock specs, 1 1/2 turns out. Didnt run as good on the way there, put passed smog with flying colors. On the way home it Stumbled all over its self and would die. So I disconnected egr again and tried to adjust air/fuel mixture to where it would run again. I could never get it to run right. So I attempted rebuilding the carb. That didn't work out either. It was flooding out. I've rebuilt carbs before. But I'm by far not a pro. So I bought a rebuilt carb. Put it on, replaced the 38 yr old fuel lines and the manual fuel pump. Slapped it on. Fuel looked good. Now, no spark. So replaced ballast, plugs, wires, cap, rotor, coil, ECM and finally after replacing the distributor I found that pick up was bad. I figured at least I replaced a lot of important parts and I know they are new. So it fires up, I drove it 3-4 miles. Valve chatter. Figured ok, timings off. I'll adjusted in a couple days. Well, now it won't start. Has fuel. Cranks slow and I've jumped it and it still cranks slow. So I put battery out of ram in it. Still cranks slow. It only sparks on every third or fourth rotation. Sorry for long post. Does anybody have any suggestions? Thinking I might as well replace starter? I've charged and load test battery. It test fine. Thank you in advance
 
It wont help your spark problems but you should look into replacing the in tank pick up filter. If its never been replaced it is probably plugged up.
 
1970swing said:
Valve chatter. Figured ok, timings off. I'll adjusted in a couple days. Well, now it won't start. Has fuel. Cranks slow and I've jumped it and it still cranks slow. So I put battery out of ram in it. Still cranks slow. It only sparks on every third or fourth rotation. Sorry for long post. Does anybody have any suggestions? Thinking I might as well replace starter? I've charged and load test battery. It test fine. Thank you in advance
Click to expand...

Describe exactly how you adjusted the timing?

=====================================================================

You may, for whatever reason, have a slow crank situation that is pulling the electrical down so much that the ignition won't fire reliably

1...Since you replaced the distributor, check the reluctor gap, anyway. You can (or could) get brass feeler gauges at O'Reallys. You want .008" That's inches, not metric

2....Take your multimeter and clip to the battery. Crank the engine a few seconds, and read the meter during the time it is cranking. You should have MORE than 10.5V the higher the better.

3....Using clip leads, etc, hook your meter to engine block, "a good ground" and the starter large stud right on the starter. Be careful doing this as you have hundreds of amps there on that big cable.

Repeat the above test. Lowest acceptable voltage (for me) is 10V, and the higher the better

If it's lower, stop there and figure out why

Discharged, aged, failing battery

Damaged battery cables

Bad battery connections. Clean them with a purpose battery terminal cleaner

Bad starter
 
340sFastback said:
It wont help your spark problems but you should look into replacing the in tank pick up filter. If its never been replaced it is probably plugged up.
Click to expand...

The gas tank was leaking from the sending unit when I bought it. I replaced the pick up and gasket.
 
67dart273, I never posted in electrical because I've been reading lots of your other posts regarding how to check the ignition system. Very informative. I need to check a lot of things. When I replaced the distributor I just matched it up to where the old one was. I know that wasn't the best way to do it. I'm going to put everything to TDC and make sure it's right. Also the starter is now burnt out, I purchased a new one yesterday. Hopefully install today. I also ordered a MSD street fire box, so we'll see if that fixes it. But I do need to check reluctor gap. It's whatever oreillys comes out the box as. All battery connections are good. Battery itself goes down to 10.5v when cranked on. Haven't checked starter on crank. It was getting 12+ to it tho. I'll check it out with new starter
 
Keep in mind that a starter with worn bushings WILL turn the engine slow, AND that when the starter is dragging that bad can cause a huge drag on the ignition voltage.

(The starter could drag so bad as to not have enough amps left for spark)
Seen it a bunch of times.
 
1970swing said:
I also ordered a MSD street fire box,
Click to expand...

Stuff like this can create problems as much as it solves. If you make a little mistake while wiring this up, or IF there's already a wiring problem "in the car" which you hooked up to with "the new box" you'll be sitting there all confused.

And, of course, there's always the 1 in 1000 chance that you got a new, defective, MSD product
 
TrailBeast said:
Keep in mind that a starter with worn bushings WILL turn the engine slow, AND that when the starter is dragging that bad can cause a huge drag on the ignition voltage.

(The starter could drag so bad as to not have enough amps left for spark)
Seen it a bunch of times.
Click to expand...

Trailbeast nailed it. Put new starter in and it fired right up!!
Now to decide if I should send the MSD back? I could install on MH or on 70 dart. But entire ignition on MH is new and there is nothing wrong with dart with chrome mopar box
 

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