Ran fine last night, wouldn't start this morning

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67Dart273 said:
This is not a legitimate test, because it ..............ready............? "bypasses" the start "bypass" circuit.

What I mean is, if the car has no start and the reason is the start / bypass circuit, you have hid the problem by jumpering the start relay. The ignition system will be getting power from "ignition run" which is COLD in "crank."

Worse, with any system using a ballast resistor, when you test by jumpering the resistor, you FURTHER lower the voltage to the ignition because..............

the battery voltage is dropped by the starter,

and the ballast resistor is still in the circuit.

That means that you might see a fairly weak spark, and conclude that you have a weak component, like a bad coil.


If you don't have 10' long arms, get a clip on "spark tester" or "rig" a spark plug so you can see it while operating the switch
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Gotchya ! now i understand.
 
73AbodEE said:
all the plugs failed at one time? in my 30 years of this , i have NEVER heard of such a thing. they failed because the coil/distributor or ecu failed to deliver spark to them
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and just to add, if all my plugs fouled at the exact same time, i would throw the heads and carb in a ditch. LOL
 
Need to chk that connector between the coil and distributor.
My car as well as another member here solved no fire in the morning problems.

Hate to tell you this, but it's going to do it again.
 
Hope it doesn't leave you on side of road. You have not found the problem and it will bite you before its over with.
 
Agreed. Almost impossible that all 6 plugs failed at once. You did something and the problem went away, that doesn't prove causality.

For the future (when "no start" surely happens again), get an in-line spark tester and a remote start switch. Maybe $10 total at Harbor Freight. Also bring in the coupon for a free mulitmeter. To connect the remote starter, remove the yellow wire on your starter relay (photo above) and clip one switch lead there. Connect the other lead to BATT+, a convenient source being the big stud on the relay. Stuck on the road, you can do the same with a jumper wire. Indeed, I keep a spade-spade jumper in my newer cars to do the same in the relay box (std 30A auto relay connect terminal 30a to 87 or 87a).
 
kt340sport said:
Check your glove box , see if there is a ballast resistor there , if not there should be , i always keep one in every car i ever had , it will turn over and just when you let the key back seems like it wants to start , but doesn,t .
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I must be one lucky person.I've owned several mopars over the years and NEVER had a ballast resistor go bad.I have went through several ECU's
 
Maybe it wasn't all of them or that plugs at all, but after I put the old plugs in, the car started right up. I was going to try iridium plugs, but if there is a more reliable solution let me know. I may just keep these in as they seem to be running better than the brand new ones I originally bought to change them out with.

I'll see how long this lasts though. It was indeed odd, but everything else looked good. All the connections seemed to be as they should. If it does happen again, and I certainly hope it doesn't, I'll have to tackle it.
 
4spdragtop said:
All the plugs failed?? That is just odd to me, but Im a joker short of a full deck anyway.....hey what show just got picked up by the Discovery channel??
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Scorned: Love Kills, should be another twenty episode season. We start shooting recon next week.

This is the show description that Discovery wrote up for the first season:

As part of ID's Red Hot Saturday Nights, SCORNED: LOVE KILLS uncovers crimes of passion sparked by a spurned lover's snap from provocative paramour to predacious threat. The 20-episode first season examines the dark side of love with a voyeuristic peek into the lust and obsession that fueled some of the most senseless, but definitely not emotionless, crimes to make front-page headlines. From dalliances with X-rated dancers to a love triangle born from an underground swingers' club, the stories featured in SCORNED pair sexual intrigue with bedded betrayal to form a recipe for murder.
 
Beware! Mine is doing the same thing right now. It has ran great for a month. All I did to get it to start that time was switch to my spare ecu and then switch back. (which ranks right there with all plugs fouling at once) Went out today left it outside and no fire, first time in a month it has done this. Supposed to be 105 degrees tommorow, hopefully it will start in the morning. I have changed plug wires coil cap and rotor ecu you name it. It must be a wire or my ignition switch. Mine won't start when I try to jump at relay...
 
For anyone else who has followed this, I just wanted to post and update after a long silence. After playing around with the car for some months, I finally had it towed down to a local mechanic in South Orange, NJ.

He determined that the reason why the car failed to start, was that the previous owner had the timing on the distributor so out of whack that he compensated for it by retarding the cylinder firing order by 1 (5,3,6,2,4,1). Seems it just finally caught up with me. After fixing the order and reseting the timing the car started up without hesitation.

Since then she's been running strong.
 
I picked one up a couple days ago just to have around in case, but like I said, she's running good and strong now.

I just wanted to give everyone who had helped me out an update.
 
Glad to see ya got it fixed! Ive never heard of someone being so out on the dizzy timing to adjust the firing order.....
 
Fishercuda said:
Neither have I, but I guess someone has to do it once.
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There's an easy explanation. The distributor drive gear was probably not in the correct place in ref. to the cam.

This is another example of "you don't need to do that." -----THAT IS if the distributor has enough "swing" to adjust the timing. I'm guessing the distributor was rotated "all the way" against the adjustment slots and was still somewhat "nearly" out of time, probably retarded.

I don't know how much you trust your mechanic, there is some chance his explanation was all BS.
 
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