Car won't start - ran yesterday 66 Dart

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Jayman62

Jayman62

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This morning I was adjusting my new electric choke (choke is now disconnected for troubleshooting reasons). After adjusting rod to make sure the choke flap fully closes I went to start the car. No start - First thought was I ran the battery down but I checked and the battery has power. Choke was connected to top leg of ballast resistor for reference.

Symptoms:

No headlights, radio, heater, turn signals or cabin light (but horn works)
Car will not crank from key - but I can crank it by jumping the terminals on the starter relay
- but the car will not kick over (usually starts first or second time)

Started trouble shooting with test light

Battery fine
test lights on both sides of ballast resistor
lights on both lugs of coil
lights on starter relay lug
no light on fuses under dash
lights on red post on instrument panel
no light on any terminal on headlight connector.

As I start to read the manual does anyone has a quick idea (maybe fusible link)

It ran just last night other than touching the electric choke (with battery disconnected) I didn't do anything else.

Thank you
 
What you are saying does not make sense, because, eg, when the headlight don't work, that is usually a basic problem "at the front" of the supply path that affects lots of stuff. This almost sounds simply like a bad cable/ bad cable connection that is intermittent and getting enough power to light your test lamp.

Chase BOTH the grounding path and the hot path. You need a load to cause the bad connection to act up

For example, leave the door open, leave the headlights on, turn the key to "accessory" and turn on the heater blower switch

Now put one probe on the battery NEG post and other on the "hot" post and be sure you are starting there "with power." Now "walk" the light along the battery cable and end up at the red feed going into the bulkhead--the fuse link. Have it there? Now leaving the ground on the batt NEG put other probe on alternator output stud. Have power there? Then it's "good" all the way from battery, through ammeter, and out again to the alternator.

Now leaving the hot probe on the battery PLUS, move the neg one to the engine block and be sure you have power.

DO A WIGGLE test. Wiggle and jiggle battery cables, the bulkhead connector area etc.
 
Also, I don't know what "top leg" of the ballast means.......is the for certain the key switch side or the coil side?
 
Jayman62 said:
Thanks for the tips I meant the key side, yeah this is a head scratcher.
Click to expand...
So following 67Dart273 suggestion I started a trace from the battery, get to the large lug on the starter relay and power there but not on the end of the fusible link that goes into the bulkhead connector. How do you remove that wire from the bulkhead connector. I'm not sure I'm making good contact to test with the test light.

Thank you
 
You "should" be able to just jam it in there into the connector. If you can't, "skip around" it. There are places in the fuse box that should be "hot." You basically have three feeds into the fuse box--one "hot" 2nd "accessory" and 3rd the odd "instrument" fuse at one end.
 
67Dart273 said:
You "should" be able to just jam it in there into the connector. If you can't, "skip around" it. There are places in the fuse box that should be "hot." You basically have three feeds into the fuse box--one "hot" 2nd "accessory" and 3rd the odd "instrument" fuse at one end.
Click to expand...

Thanks so much for your help, f link is good, found the issue under the dash, have a bad ground wire, wiggling wires makes the dome light come on so I just have to trace it out now and find the bad connection. Car started up when in the "good" position of wiggling. LOL. These cars never cease to amaze me.
 
Jayman62 said:
Thanks so much for your help, f link is good, found the issue under the dash, have a bad ground wire, wiggling wires makes the dome light come on so I just have to trace it out now and find the bad connection. Car started up when in the "good" position of wiggling. LOL. These cars never cease to amaze me.
Click to expand...
Del is one of our best. ALWAYS willing to help.:thumbsup:

Edit: For spelling.
 
Thanks, and you are welcome. I've gotten old. I first started screwin with radios and electricity/ electronics about the 7th/ 8th grade. I had my amateur radio license before I got out of high school. Spent 6 years in the Navy as a RADAR ET (electronics technician). I've been in and out all my life. Had my first Mopar around end of 70, spring of 71, and part of the time I was stationed at NAS Miramar, San Diego (Top Gun, then) I had a part time job at the base auto hobby shop.

I admit, tho, the stuff in these new rigs is way harder for me to deal with--largely because of poorly written and sometimes expensive/ difficult to get documentation
 
67Dart273 said:
Thanks, and you are welcome. I've gotten old. I first started screwin with radios and electricity/ electronics about the 7th/ 8th grade. I had my amateur radio license before I got out of high school. Spent 6 years in the Navy as a RADAR ET (electronics technician). I've been in and out all my life. Had my first Mopar around end of 70, spring of 71, and part of the time I was stationed at NAS Miramar, San Diego (Top Gun, then) I had a part time job at the base auto hobby shop.

I admit, tho, the stuff in these new rigs is way harder for me to deal with--largely because of poorly written and sometimes expensive/ difficult to get documentation
Click to expand...
They make you have to bring it to the dealer for hookup to diag computer. Racket.
 
Hello, I'd like to ad to this scenario. Just got the car 2 weeks ago. Drove it 200 miles to my house, been driving almost everyday. Went to drive tonight before it rained and put in R, started to move and heard a pop, engine cut off, no gauges/radio/heater. Looked at battery connections, just installed a new battery/has new ends/ checked power to the starter relay/good. Checked power to where the fuse link goes into the bulkhead connector terminal Z. Nothing. Poked the fuse link until I found power.
For some reason the link let go right in the middle. The conduit is still good but the link is not. I remove the link and pulled was able to stretch it. I then cut out the bad section/ wired in a 7.5amp in line fuse connector(I may increase that to a 15amp fuse). Anyway did all that and now all is good. Amazing that this didn't happen on my trip from Delaware to VA. Or during the past 2 weeks of me driving around town. It happened in the driveway.
And the only think I can think of is that it looks original to the car. 1966 fusible link that supplies power to the Ammeter. I suppose it had lived its life.

Does anyone know how to remove the male terminal from the bulk head engine side connector? I want to remove the original fuse link completely and fix it more better.

I work on cars for a living and I have a 66 Dart service manual, but it doesn't go into terminal removal.
 
Last edited:
Here is the schematic for the fusible link for a 1966 Dart.
 

Attachments

  • Fusible Link.pdf
    2.4 MB · Views: 66
The fusible link lets go when there is too much current going into or out of the battery.
Since it went POP, that probably means it went fast due to a big short.

You got lucky and it worked the way it is supposed to.
I would disconnect the battery and look for shorts. Either a wire rubbing against the body or alternator failure. since it seems to be intermittent, I'd suspect a loose wire.

The ammeter is not a normal gage. It is a part of the battery feed/charge line. The needle moves when current flows past it, roughly 40 amps discharge to 40 amps charge.
1688530859471.png


Yes you can buy a fusible link.
Bill Rose is a source for ones that look close to factory.

Removing the bulkhead connectors and male terminals.
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