darn electrical

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cannucky

cannucky

The Guy With No Birthday
Joined
Sep 25, 2008
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Portage Du Fort QC
Alright so I'm backing out of the backyard last weekend and the car dies {69 barracuda 318/727 electronic ignition chrome box } cranks over strong but no fire at all , try 4 times over a couple of hours then push her back down the drive and into the garage . I figure it's gotta be either the coil the box or maybe the ballast resistor but where to start ? Now this weekend I go out to pull a wire and verify no spark and just for the heck of it I try her first at she fires first click without even hearing the starter whirrr so now where do I start ? I can't drive her anywhere for fear she will die on the road on me:angry7:
 
I absolutly HATE when stuff like that happens. It sounds like a bad connecton or loose wire. I hope you find the problem.
 
sounds like a good time to go through and inspect/clean connections. and for what its worth, i was always told you should carry a spare ballast resistor in your car since they go out without warning and they can be changed easily on the side of the road. i opted to rewire my valiant with an EZ wiring kit. no old connections and no ballast resistor. i hope you get it figured out so you can start doing some dependable cruising. good luck!
 
Did you do any recent electrical or ignition work on it recently? Sounds like loose connection or bad ground.
 
MoparLvr said:
Did you do any recent electrical or ignition work on it recently? Sounds like loose connection or bad ground.
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Not really I felt around the neutral safety switch to see if it had the 3 prong connector on it { it did } as the back-up lights I made for it last fall have never worked and I wasn't sure if they were wired at the tranny or not ,pulled the passenger side valve cover off to check for a loose lifter which may have jiggled something at the coil , I am leaning towards a buggy coil or control box as the car has had some rough idle issues from time to time lately and has been slow to fire when hot which I thought was a fuel boiling issue but who knows maybe I'll buy a new sew of plug wire's ,coil and box, since I'm getting ready to buy/build a stroker and would like to make sure everything I bolt on to it is good .I guess I'll be unwrapping, checking and re-wrapping the engine bay harness while the motors out for sure now eh!
 
How old is the electronic ign harness? The wires coming out of the ballast are prone to cracking and breaking from the heat put out by the ballast. A new harness is probably the cheapest thing to replace,yet the most work.
 
needsaresto said:
How old is the electronic ign harness? The wires coming out of the ballast are prone to cracking and breaking from the heat put out by the ballast. A new harness is probably the cheapest thing to replace,yet the most work.
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When the resto was done a year ago I personally went out there and re wrapped the engine bay harness which was a mix of mostly new wire soldered into the proper connector's both new and old .Thats also when we converted the ignition from points to hei so it's basically a new harness tho it was made from scratch not bought . If the car hadn't fired right up yesterday and again this morning I would have bought the new parts and trusted them when the car fired but now I've got that darn paranoia going I'm going to trace what I can with out unwrapping the harness and check the grounds etc....but I think I'm going to change out some parts anyways ,the guy who did my resto has shown himself to be a liar and a thief so who knows how old the "new" parts he used really are , the coil and box could be thirty years old for all anybody knows and I never liked the plug wire set he put on so I'm thinking an upgrade across the board is in order maybe I'll call Hughes on Tuesday and see what they recommend for use with their 426 SB stroker which is what I'm looking at going too when the dollar gets a little higher and I can play the exchange and get the Bank of Canada to pay for most of it eh!
 
Good plan cannucky! Too bad you had to find out the hard way about your restoration guy.I dont know how guys expect to stay in business when they abuse customers.
 
needsaresto said:
Good plan cannucky! Too bad you had to find out the hard way about your restoration guy.I dont know how guys expect to stay in business when they abuse customers.
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yeah this guy and his brother have hoarded all the parts and cars for 40 years and are known for their shady crap at their tranny shops but if you redo a mopar out here your going to have to do business with them either directly or through a stooge thats just how it is ,he doe's the resto work at his backyard shop {that I helped expand to include a paint shop } using guys on disability as cash workers and still rapes everyone he deals with "I'm not doing this for the money I'm doing it to help the Mopar brethren ",oh well live and learn or is that dose with gas and burn ? I always get those two confused
 
cannucky said:
Alright so I'm backing out of the backyard last weekend and the car dies {69 barracuda 318/727 electronic ignition chrome box } cranks over strong but no fire at all , try 4 times over a couple of hours then push her back down the drive and into the garage . I figure it's gotta be either the coil the box or maybe the ballast resistor but where to start ? Now this weekend I go out to pull a wire and verify no spark and just for the heck of it I try her first at she fires first click without even hearing the starter whirrr so now where do I start ? I can't drive her anywhere for fear she will die on the road on me:angry7:
Click to expand...

So have you found the fix yet?

I am having the same symptoms as you.....car will just die while driving, whether cold or hot. It cranks and has spark while cranking and seems to want to start , but let go of the key and she dies out. What a little while, wiggling stuff etc and like magic she fires up. I too have the slow start when hot, which is due to fuel boiling.....(or is it? LOL)


Had the issue last year for a bit but thought I had it licked when I found two loose wires in the aftermarket wiring harness. Fixed those and no issues the rest of the season. Pulled the car out this year and the issue is back. Thought it was the ballast but not so sure now......I pulled the harness and sent it back to the builder to have him go over it with a fine tooth comb.....and I am going to replace the ballast with an AC Delco brand (versus the cheap no name one from pep boys) and I may upgrade to a mopar chrome box......
 
MY scamp did the same thing last night on the way home from storage. It turned out to be the pick up coil in the distributor. It started after awhile and tonight I let it idle for about 30-45 minutes and it died. Checked power at the ballast, coil and box. The power was dim until I disconnected the box. I was kind of stumped but I plugged in another dist. and grounded the base and then it had spark. Put the different dist. in and it started. Let it run for 1/2 hour and went for a drive and no problems. The resistance of the pickup was 350 or so on the old one when it was running and when it quit it had an open circut until it cooled down enough to make the circut again. I think it was a wells or something, it looked like it was recently replaced. I have had the car for a couple years and never had a problem until this year. Hope this helps. Craig
 
with heat comes extra resistance so if there a bad connection to begin with it will only get worse as everything gets hotter.
 
=P~i had same problem with my 67 barracuda, some days would fire straight up, others......all connections were good,went through several "orange boxes" ballasts,etc.i got so fed up i junked it all, bought a secondhand msd 6 and went to a points dizzy <car now a 440ci>one of the best things i ever did! EASY to wire in,and if the msd ever packs up? run a 12v + to dizzy and shell get home.......the points dizzy is just a trigger mechanism for msd so points will never wear out.the car has other issues that need to be addressed ehem... :read2: but when im out and about she never fails to start! ironically the cost of the secondhand msd/dizzy <cheeper stateside?> was less than id forked out over a several year period trying different coils/ballasts etc.................
 
Sorry Shadango I haven't put much effort into fixing it yet I started it up again this saturday and it fired right up I tried letting it idle in the yard for a while , 15-20 minutes at least I'd say but it didn't die again so I haven't messed with it as I said above I'm just waiting for the cdn dollar to rise another dime or so and I'm going to make a move on a new motor either a Hughes based 426 sb stroker or the MP 440 sb stroker depending on what kind of deal I can make so as for the electrical deal I'll probably be upgrading to a MSD system when I swap motors plus I'll go through the harness while the engine bay is empty and I can climb right in and go through it all easier- sorry I know this won't help you solve your problem
 
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