Spark? problem; or, i swear i am going to kill my truck with me in it.

Sounds like it may be a bad ground...

When I changed the coil, resistor and solinoid in the 31....wouldnt start..

Well it always started....so while diagnosing, I noticed that the plugs "aint got no spark".

A wtf moment occured when I pulled the plug, saw no spark, touched the door and she fired right up...

I guess I completed the ground....then I checked all ground straps for contact...voila.

 

shocking!

 

This is better than watching TV. Must be hard to listen to all the advice, even if some of it is good. I'm on the edge of my seat following this thread.

Hope you solve it quick so I can get back to work...

 

11.96 battery voltage at 10 degrees F is not bad. I think parksquijada has it right - drain the old gas first thing. We all know electrical problems are really fuel problems (and visa-versa).

Be sure to let us know what you find...

 

If an engine has been filled to the top of the butterflies with raw gas, you'll have hydraulic lock, and it won't crank at all, or maybe just enough to bend a rod. Unless, of course, you're running a Farmall 4 cylinder with an updraft Marvel Schebler.......

 

you basicly hotwired the car, that would check for an open circuit or short (a short you would see smoke). if you did this and it didn't fire then this isn't the problem, even if you had no voltage at the coil you substituted it with the battery. you now have a second problem but not the primary problem.

 

if it runs on starting fluid but not on gas maybe its the gas.

 

neutral safty switch

 

I hope you get this figured out soon or else I'll be laying in bed all night thinking about it!

 

what Unclee said.

try a new condensor
good to keep spare tune up set anyway

after that confirm what the factory points setting is suppose to be

 

It's still true. Maybe ya gotta pull the plugs for the first second of cranking to clear the hydro-lock. But then when the old, gas soaked plugs are reinstalled they'll start 5 seconds later if your ignition works properly and it's still got decent cranking speed.

Lotta you guys sure like to replace spark plugs cause of a little gasoline or soot exposure. Seems kinda odd given they live in gas & soot. I got Qjet equipped cars that flood every f-n time you shut em off and still manage to get +30K out of plugs. Wonder how that happens???? Is it possible that people are confusing how to find the last little bit of racecar performance with how to start an old truck motor in the cold?



General Gow---

How confident are you in your jumper wire???? A coil draws a decent amount of power and you'd need a really good jumper connection. Would be easy to jumper enough to get a multimeter reading, but not enough to make the coil work when load was placed upon it. I've been mislead by that very same troubleshooting mistake more than once. Lotta alligator clips won't flow that much, especially on old corroded posts, ain't like hotwiring in the movies.

Have you disturbed the coil's ground wire? If not, do so. Loosen whatever screw or nut it goes to and retighten it. Just enough to disturb any corrosion that's recently developed.

good luck

 

Make a jumper wire from 12 gaube wire with alligator clips and run it from the positive term of the bat to the pos of the coil then you know you have bat voltage at the coil.

then take the cap off and open and close the points manually (small screwdriver) you should see a spark at the points whan they open. If not check the wire from the coil terminal on the dist, to the points them selves. This wire moves as the contact plate moves from vacuum advance. It may look fine on the outside but be cracked under the insulation. Or the insulation may be worn off and it is grounding against the body of the distributor. If this is ok and there is spark at the points, you know that circuit is working. Remove the jumper wire so as not to overheat the coil. Then check to see the little carbon center contact in the dist cap is in place and then that the rotor is on correctly and fully seated. Replace the cap and double check that the firing order is correct. I had one drive me nuts everything was right except I had the wires one tower off on the dist cap. Assure the coil wire is fully and firmly seated in the cap and coil. If this is all correct, you should have spark at the plugs and at the correct time. If you have gas in the carb, and for the 15 bucks it will cost get some new plugs, you should have a runing motor.

 

does anybody knows if a chevrolet 3100 6cyl. also have a brake ground switch?

do you need to step on the brake to start the engine from a chevrolet 3100??

 

I`m surprised no one else has thought of this...

sometimes when I have this same problem, I turn my ball cap around backwards,
while I hop up and down on my left leg, and rotate to my left 2 complete revolutions.

It has never failed to work for me...If it won`t work for you, youre doing it wrong!

In that case, soak the seat in Gasoline, and toss a match in it.[from a distance]

Keep in mind this is a last resort, and should only be used when you`re tired of fucking with it!!!

Good luck,

Tom T.

 

i just asks my buddy who got the same problem on his chevrolet 3100 it turns out to be the condensor ... so save your self some time try that out first!!

 

no !!

 

It`s good to see you`re working on that Binder...I used to tow my `40 coupe to the drags in Oklahoma, with a `60 IHC pickup. It was about 70 miles one way...My dad was always too busy to go with me, but He let me use his pickup...Not many 16 year old kids would want to go drag racing that bad today.

later,

Tom T.

 

Are you sure you're looking at the right post? One post will read on/off voltage with the points. The other post is the one that actually supplies key-switched power.

It's fairly unusual that problems begin to stack during a no-start, like first something else and now coil feed. That just doesn't make sense and when that happens.....ask if your troubleshooting is really, truly correct. Easy to overlook stuff in your troubleshooting environment.

good luck

 

The points ground the primary winding of the coil. If you measure voltage with the points closed, there won't be any. Check your primary circuit by using a jumper from the battery to the + coil post. Don't use a jumper cable. Those connections can work under heavy load but not light load due to corrosion you can't see. Close the points. Put the center coil wire (high tension) near ground. Open and close the points with a screwdriver. You should get spark out of the center of the coil.

 

The coil has 2 small posts. + and -. The plus is the power. ~9 volts through a resistor when running, battery voltage when starting. The - post should go through an insulated post in the side? of the distributor to the points inside. The points open and close to provide interrupted DC to the coil primary by grounding that wire to provide a pulsing current flow through the coil primary. The coil is a transformer. A transformer won't work on DC.

 

Take the wire off the coil to test for power. If the points are closed and the power is going through the coil your tester will say no power.

 

Where does the wire go through the distributor? I am familiar with the old GM stuff. Is this a Delco system?