MSD Ignition trouble? Car wont start, help!

Took dad's '55 out the other day and while we were cruising along, the main 12v wire that comes off the starter and up the firewall to feed everything somehow slipped out and rested on the fenderwell header. It burned about 3 inches of wire away and cut the car right out. We coasted off the road and saw the burned half of the wire coming from the starter was sitting arching on the header. We spliced it back together on the spot, cleared everything, fired it up and drove home. Now, about 2 days later, it wont start. It's getting gas and I changed coils, still nothing. What should I do? Engine is a Paxton supercharged SBC with a 6AL ignition....any thoughts? Thanks,
-Dean

 

The MSD site has a section on troubleshooting the unit.


jerry

 

Does it have a crank trigger?

 

To test the MSD - I think you just pull the coil wire at the distributor cap & set it near a ground, then ground the white trigger wire a couple times - it should spark every time...

Just had to test my MSD for similar problem - melted wires.

 

Double check the repaired power wire and the ground, the large red and black wires. Make sure tou have switched power to th small red lead.


jerry

 

Go to msd web site, the have a very good troubleshooting section

 

I don't how you spliced the wired back together but, being on the shoulder of the road , maybe not so good. If it was me, I would replace as much of the cooked wires as possible with clean soldered connections. Two clean splices are better than one quick twist splice. The heat might have really increased the resistance through those wires.

Cheers,

Fixer

 

the resistance may have eventually smoked your MSD

Or the dead short may have taken its toll

 

Sounds like you fried your unit. I did the same thing last month while working under the dash, bumped a wire with some bare insulation, it shorted for a second, and viola, fried MSD distributer.

 

If you find that the MSD is fried, send it back to MSD to have them rebuild it. The MSD service department is fast and friendly and usually not very exspensive. When we were racing late-models and then road racing we send all of our MSD stuff back to them at the end of every season to get it checked out. MSD would repair the parts that needed repairing and update everything that needed updating. The cost per unit was usually less than $30.

I dont mean to sound like a MSD adverti*****t, but I always received great service from them, and that is sometimes hard to find these days.