hey fellas, i put a 350/350 in my 49 chev coupe, and was running great until a couple of days ago......my mill is turning from the ignition, and its not sparkin or firing up. i checked the dumb shit like if theres gas in it, and makin sure all the stuff is connected.....but it just turns, i traced my wires, ignition to starter, then it goes starter to volt gauge, gauge to alt. then i checked my coil, positive terminal to distributor base, and negitive terminal to ballast resistor and ballast resistor to ground. and the top coil wire is connected to top plug on distributor cap, rotor/points/cap/coil/alternator/starter/ignition switch and battery are all new. i tested all hot points, power goin from the ignition switch to the starter and when it's turnin, power from the starter to the alternator, there's power to the amp gauge, there is no power to the positive terminal to the coil when turning, i swaped the coil out with a working coil and still nothing, same with cap and rotor. when the motor is turning your supposed to get a spark from the coil wire when touched to metal right? well it's not doin it. i'm a body man and know a little about wiring, but not enough, i thought i'd pick all your experianced brains for help. thanks guys.......
Hook a jumper cable from the engine ground (some nice metal point) and the negative terminal of the battery. If that works, you need a ground from the engine to the frame, and/or the body to the frame. With your description, that's the only thing I can think of.
Well first things first, from your description, the positive wire is not supposed to go to the distributor. It should be the wire coming from the ignition switch on the positive side and the negative side is the wire coming from the points in the distributor. Check it again with the wiring changed around. Not that that is gonna fix things, but it will make helping you diagnose the issue if we are on the same page. What we got to know once you get that straightened out, is do you have voltage at the positive side of the coil with the key on and when you are cranking. Brant
I was assuming you had negative ground. Skip my suggestion if you have a positive ground. Brant brings up a good point. If this is a negative ground car, then the distributor wire goes to the - terminal of the coil. The + terminal goes through the ballast to the ignition switch. The ballast resistor is not grounded. Generally on GM, you have a ballast resistor with two terminals on one side, and one on the other. The single terminal goes to the ignition switch, and one of the two terminal side goes to the + coil, while the other terminal goes to the starter solenoid. This bypasses the ballast during starting.
Check, if you have a tach or cut-off switch wired to ground the coil, it could be grounding, take any extra wires off the negative side of the coil and leave only the dist. wire and see waht happens.
Correct he is! The lead from the distributor to the + or - side of the coil will always match the way the battery is grounded. Negative ground the - post of the coil connects the lead from the distributor. You will need a resistor bypass wire going from bypass post on the starter to either the + post on the coil or the coil side of the bypass resistor to get 12V when you are cranking the engine to start. Otherwise the engine is trying to start with about 9 volts.
there was a break in the resistor wire under the dash, it was rubbing up against a metal edge and shorted out, the points were burned up i changed em out, also i switched the coil wires around, i'm not sure how they got on backwards.......possibly "help" from my friends. but now it runs like a peach. thanks for your help!
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