Hey guys- I'm about ready to start up the straight six in my 37' Dodge 1/2 ton for the first time. It had been sitting for MANY years on a farm in North Dakota before I got it and hasn't been run since it was parked oh so long ago. I drained the oil and all five quarts were accounted for so I know it hasn't leaked and there wasn't any water at all in it. I can turn it over freely by hand and it turns smoothly. Its got good compression. I picked up a new 6 volt battery for it, flushed the gas tank, put in some fresh 30 weight oil, and popped in 6 new spark plugs. I'm pretty confident it'll be a runner pretty quick, but I haven't got a key for it. I'm sure it can't be too difficult to hotwire it due to the fact that the wiring is so minimal. Anybody know the easiest way to hotwire it? Thanks for the help!
Make up a 10 or 12 gauge jumper cable with a largish alligator clip on each end. Buy or make a remote starter switch. Put the remote starter switch on the solenoid and run the jumper cable from the battery to the plus side of the coil [ ***uming negative ground ]. I always put a couple of oz of gas into the float bowl via the bowl vent. You should spin the motor for a bit with the starter before hooking up the ign. ETA, you should file the points and make sure there is some gap.
Actually the early MOPARS are positive ground so the wire should go to the neg side of the coil, the pos terminal goes to the dizzy. If you don't have a mechanics friend temp switch for the solenoid, just jump the big posts with an pld pair of pliers. Here is a easy temp wire schematic. If your coil is one that mounts through the firewall, you might want to run a auxiliary coil till you get everything set up. The hot wire on these fromthe ign switch are shielded.
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