Technical Painless Ignition Switch / Painless Harness

Just got off the phone with the Painless tech and he suggested I move my orange wire over to the brown wire to hopefully increase voltage in my coil wire.
Has anyone done this and did it create any issues with those circuits ?
My coil wire isn't putting out enough volts to fire an ignition box, but if I use a jumper wire out of the fuse box, off a keyed acc. terminal, it will fire the engine.

 

It looks like you should be running the pink wire from the switch to the ignition box and run the coil from the box.

 

Man...Iv'e put in a few of those kits with MSD boxes, never had an issue. Nothing T ed into it , correct?

 

What kind of ignition. Probably need to use the bypass off the starter relay

 

This is how I presume it works, pink from ignition switch to 30 amp fuse in fuse box, then out of fuse on the other pink to ignition box.
The tech didn't say otherwise when I said that, he thinks it's somehow losing voltage through the switch. He was all for blaming the ignition switch until I said it also was from Painless, then he backtracked a bit.

 

I'd question those intructions.... Every four-position ignition I've ever seen works like this: Off, no power to any terminal except the incoming power on the red wire (looking at the switch diagram). Turned to acc, ONLY the acc terminal will have power. On, you now have power to the ign and acc terminals. Turn to start, the solenoid terminal becomes live but power is dropped off the acc terminal. This is to ensure full voltage to the ignition while starting. If that is how the switch actually works (which is NOT how the instructions or diagram say it does), yes, moving the orange wire to the acc terminal should clear up the issue. If it DOESN'T drop power on the acc terminal when turned to start, I would suspect a defective switch.

The diagram notes that the pink wire goes to a 'coil' fuse. If it does, there should be a wire coming off the other side of that fuse that should connect to the red wire at the MSD box. If that's the case and you still have the same issue, check the voltage drop across the fuse to make sure the connections are good.

 

Nothing T'd into or off of it

 

How much voltage during cranking?

 

Hmm?

 

That might make a small difference, but you won't know if you do not check it with a voltmeter. The orange, pink and brown wire are all interconnected once the switch is in the on position.

After I re-read your comments it appears you are saying the engine will start if you jump off the orange wire that feeds the fuse block. Is that right? Since the orange wire and the pink wire come off the same terminal, it appears you have some voltage drop in the pink wire which I assume runs to the ignition box. Need to test that with a voltmeter.

 

I used an open circuit on the fusebox itself to jump over to the red msd wire



Not sure of voltage drop on the pink coil wire, I don't have enough hands to test it

 

Stupid question....Fully charged quality battery and a starter thats not drawing a shitload of amps?

 

It doesn't take much. Connect the negative voltmeter lead to a good ground such as the battery negative terminal (you can use a long jumper wire if needed) and leave it there. Turn the key on and check the battery voltage at the battery positive terminal. Next check the voltage at the at the ignition switch terminal the pink wire is attached to. Note that you are only moving the voltmeter positive lead. The voltage at the ignition terminal should be the same as battery voltage within 0.1 volt. Now check the connection where the pink wire feeds the msd box. It again should be within 0.1 volt of the connection at the ignition switch; any more points to a bad wire or connection.

If all that tests okay, the next thing I would do would be to crank the engine while testing the voltage at the battery. Once you have that voltage, hopefully more than 10.6 volts, check the voltage at the msd box while cranking. It should be within 0.1 volt of cranking voltage. Any voltage drop of more than 0.1 volt points to a bad wire or wire connection.

 

Battery is on a battery tender and newer 800 cca, starter is the GM mini starter from 98 k1500, I entertained the idea that maybe the battery wasn't full but it cranks that blower over fast as shit, starter is new too.

 

I just finished chasing my tail cause I wasn’t getting enough juice to turn my starter over. My painless ignition switch was bad. Bought another from Amazon for $15, problem solved. Just seems like that’s the way things are these days.

 

Slight correction on the starter, this one has a napa heavy duty



Today I'll pull the switch and swap the wires and see if that helps, if not I'll just hardwire it into that acc. spot in the fusebox

 

Does the starter have the I terminal on the solenoid?

 

I'd also verify that the switch terminals are identified right. If the ignition and accessory terminal labels are switched, that could be the problem. The ONLY thing that should be connected to the ignition terminal is the ignition, and maybe the gauges. ALL OTHER key-switched loads (radio, heater, turns, wipers, etc) should be connected to the accessory terminal.

The biggest thing I learned in troubleshooting electrical issues professionally over the years is don't assume anything, verify it for yourself.

 

A number of ignition switches for rigs that normally use points rather than electronic do not have power to the IGN pin in start position relying on the resistor bypass wire to provide power to the coil.

I've worked on a few well tuned rigs that didn't have the bypass wire hooked up that would not start while cranking but fired up when you let the switch go back to IGN when you took the pressure off the key but didn't switch to off. Those don't start with no bypass wire to the ignition on rigs that have been converted to electronic and don't have a bypass wire.

Quick test= turn the key to on and check the voltage at the msd box input with a good volt meter. Then have a helper turn the switch to start and see if the voltage drops. If it drops or goes away during cranking there is your issue, you need a bypass wire from the solenoid to the box.

The one issue I have with Painless on their universal kits is that the instructions are a bit confusing when you are trying to sort things out and get sidetracked by instructions that don't pertain to your specific setup. Then throw in a MSD box and there are no instructions but you should be following MSD instructions just as if you were taking a point style ignition off a rig and putting the MSD setup in.

 

So I'm leaning towards the switch as the issue, switching the orange over to brown terminal didn't help.

Battery - 12.65 v

Coil wire from harness in run position - 12.38 v

Coil wire from harness in start position - 9.5 v

Drops a lot of current and of course the msd requires a full 12 v to work.

 

If your starter has the I terminal hook a jumper between it and the pink wire at the msd and see if it starts

 

I believe the MSD will work at 10.5 volts (cranking voltage), but not below that. But it does sound like a bad switch...

 

One more question; the 9.5 volts you're seeing, is that with or without the starter cranking? If it's with, check to make sure you're getting full voltage to the switch while cranking.

 

Just off the phone again with painless tech and he just wants to point fingers everywhere else but his product of course.
Since it starts immediately when I use the jumper wire out of the fuse box wouldn't that mean it's the switch ?
He wanted to blame the starter, then the battery, then the cables, etc.
The engine turns over really fast, only 8.5 - 1 compression with the blower up top but nothing sounds like it's straining.
My plan is to order another switch which should be here Sunday, if it doesn't cure it at least I'll have a switch for the 57 pickup that's next on the build list.

 

I had a ign. switch fail, (not Painless) and my parts store had one from Cole/Hersee for about $16 that seems like a much better switch than the one I had. I trust their brand.

Gary

 

With the engine cranking

I just tested the batt. terminal post on back of ignition switch and it shows the exact same readings as above

Key off - 12.65
Run position - 12.37
Start position and cranking - 9.5

 

What does the ign post show when you have the key in start position? That is what you are actually dealing with. The whole issue is as we have said several times, you probably need a bypass wire from the R post on the solenoid to the box and done.
Checking the 20 circuit wiring kit wiring instructions makes no notation of a resistor wire in the pink wire .

 

It should, it's a stock style big block heavy duty stater, I run that wire on my t-bucket with the dual point distributor.
I'm not to quick on wanting to run that wire on this, it would be cleaner and easier to snip the coil wire out of the harness near the fuse box and just put it over in the open acc spot.
The wire is already routed up behind the dash and tucked away, plus there's plenty of wire on the fuse box end to move it, maybe put an inline fuse in it.

 

Start position is 9.5 like I posted.

Harness # 10102

Key switch # 80153

MSD 6al non digital

.

 

To clearify. “That’s only at the battery terminal of the ING. switch”? If yes, why a drop in primary power feed to the IGN. switch?