Car will not start (electrical) what am I missing?

[AKcharger]

R2 a valve cover gasket an pulled car out of garage to leak and op's check. stated fine but step on break and car dies. try it agin and same thing.  Then start dont use brake and ease it out... dies going out garage. after some time cranking it fires and I pull it in for the night and throw batter charger on it. Today spins but will not fire. have gas and compression so only leaves one thing...here''s what I've done:
- Slaved in new ECU...nothing
- Slaved in new ballast resistor...nope
- Slaved in new coil...nope
- Jumpered + battery to + coil...nope
- checked EVERY wire and connection, all good and tight and nothing other than aircleaner and drivers side valve cover removed

Cranks but not light off. only thing I see left is distributor but that just seems such a long shot...what am I missing here guys??

[XH29N0G]

I did not see if you were getting a spark. 

[AKcharger]

I'm sure, but to be  100% I need to pop a plug wire and zap myself lol..hold on


Yup confirmed no spark
oh and also popped dist cap and checked to make sure sender unit was secure and stuff, all good

[70 sublime]

Is the distributor turning ?

[AKcharger]

well if it's not I'm pretty screwed!

[XH29N0G]

Do you have a multimeter to trace whether you have voltage and continuity in the right places?

I have had various electrical issues, ranging from those things you slaved in (regulator, coil, ecu, resistor) to the connection on the firewall, to the key, and then (I think) the key itself.  The reason I ask about a multimeter is because it is nice to have confirmation that some of the connections are being made.

If it gets to it, I found when working through the wiring, that it was helpful to have the diagrams in the Factory Service Manual.

Last time I went through this, I had an issue where the lead from the switch for start was live, but the one from the key on 'run' was dead.  The car would turn over, start, and then shut off as soon as the key was released.  The multimeter and FSM helped me with that, but not after a whole bunch of engine cranking.  Enough to cause another problem because I had a smaller gauge (cheaper) positive battery cable and that heated up and melted.

Good luck with this.  I take it from your description this has been swapped over to electronic ignition. 

[Nacho-RT74]

ok... what car ? your 72 or your brand new 70 ?

do you have dimming BRAKE light on cluster while cranking ? that will mean ballast is good same as bulkhead conections... and ECU is being sourced

I have had ( long time ago ) a random failure trying to start up the engine for a month or so. I shaked the Distributor plugs and started up... This meant, it was a damaged plug or wires arriving to plug. I replaced dist pick up coil just because the wire it was broken inside. Pickup coil itself was good, but not the pigtail. I had a spare one and replaced, but I can fix it replacing the plug/pigtail.

you can try to measure the dist continuity. It should be on 150-900 ohms rate ( tipically 250-350 ). You could measure this at ECU plug, That will test also the dist connection.

[AKcharger]

Sorry Nacho, the '72.  Let me go try that about continuity

[70 sublime]

Well did you get the 72 running yet or are you too busy playing with your new toy ??

[AKcharger]

lol, new toy. stripped it down to a running/rolling shell for paint. I'll play with '72 tomorrow

[ACUDANUT]

 A battery ?? 

[AKcharger]

Fixed...coil bad. a 2 year old MSD Blaster 2 dead. 12V going in 4.2v coming out. replaced with a stock one and  "varooom"

Thanks!

[Nacho-RT74]

just 2 years old ? Damn! and not even being a driver!!!

I NEVER have changed a ballast or a coil due a damage. In fact I replaced the coil it came on my car with an USED Chromed Blaster II coil ( with even some dents ) which have been running on my car since that just for upgrade. Well is true my car hasn't run in 7 years but my car was a REAL DRIVER up to that.

Need to say the used Blaster coil is a TAD smaller diameter than a new one I have storaged as a spare parts, and is I THINK tan top, while the new one is iI THINK black ( damn I miss my car. Last time I saw it it was maybe 4 years ago ). Maybe a really old manufacturing piece ? ( Performance parts are not really available in Vzla like in USA so I tend to get allways a stock of spare parts ready to run )

[XH29N0G]

I had something similar happened with one of those coils I believe the same type


I mounted the replacement where the water reservoir is for the wiper washer and so forth so good.

[ACUDANUT]

Coils made in China are really junk too.

[AKcharger]

I'll take a 50 year used old stock one over a "New" one any day

[AKcharger]

Wait...no it's dead again. I hate Intermittent problems!!!! 

OK so AGAIN I jumped pos batt to pos. coil and still noting. This is telling me the issue is down stream from coil..which is distributor...correct?

[XH29N0G]

My understanding is that the pickup on the distributor (I think something like a Hall sensor/magnetic pickup)signals the ignition module (in my case an MSD, but I assume the same in other cases) and then this module sends the on/of signal to the coil, then the coil then sends its signal back to the distributor where it goes through the rotor and cap to the cylinder that needs to be fired.  

For my system, there are wires on the ignition module that if grounded will shut it down.  I have also had the module itself go.  And I can imagine that if the pickup didn't send a signal it would also shut down.

My guess is if it were the hall sensor itself it would stay shut down, but a connection might be loose.  My other guess is that there could be something in the ignition module that is driving the coil.  

I went through something similar a few years ago and had to replace both the ignition module and the coil.  Mine was an intermittent miss on the module and a coil that failed when it got hot.

Again, I am not a mechanic so I could be completely off base in ideas or understanding.

[AKcharger]

I'll swap out Module again and distrubutor after that

[XH29N0G]

If you are using a multimeter, I would check connections for continuity too.  Sometimes things are just loose. 

I had an issue with a connection from the key switch that caused all sorts of headaches and led to all sorts of other problems when trying to diagnose it.

[AKcharger]

I did once but will check again...Thanks!

[Bronzedodge]

It's not a second bad coil?

[AKcharger]

It's not a second bad coil?

I've learned nothing is impossible 😌

[AKcharger]

It's not a second bad coil?

Possible, unlikely but Possible

[c00nhunterjoe]

Not to change the subject but i would be concerned with the part about it would run until the brake pedal was touched.

[AKcharger]

Well..it's running again. I swapped out the ECU, nothing, then swapped out the Distributor...at 1st nothing so I replaced the the Voltage regulator and was shootting wires when I noticed I never plugged in the distributor, so pluged it in and it fired right up. So Distributor??I need to drive it and make sure it doesn't repeat

[Nacho-RT74]

Well as I told ( and not saying I'm right on your case ) in my experience, when I had a random start up failure ( and wasn't the ECU ) I shaked the dist plug and started up, this took me to replace the pickup coil and never more got that fail. Took me to get the conclusion about a wire break ( strands cut )  into the dist pigtail/plug, even still the pick up coil itself was good.

[AKcharger]

Well as I told ( and not saying I'm right on your case ) in my experience, when I had a random start up failure ( and wasn't the ECU ) I shaked the dist plug and started up, this took me to replace the pickup coil and never more got that fail. Took me to get the conclusion about a wire break ( strands cut )  into the dist pigtail/plug, even still the pick up coil itself was good.

Thanks Nacho...If it keeps up that's the 1st place I'm going!

[AKcharger]

Well it's still doing great, put 40 miles on it yesterday. Winggled wires and everything...guess it was distributor!