The Crusty Cuda: Whole lotta Shakin' (N96) Goin' on!

[cook_dw]

[32KZ]

Fire it up without the harness in it, like a few posted. Simple and quick. Peace of mind.

[njsteve]

Dave is from Jersey. He should know how to hot wire a car!

[A12pilot]

Say what? I can’t believe (cut splice) you’d say something (pull, twist) so degrading to all people from New Jersey (crank crank..vrrooommm).....Bye!

Yes, that’s a good point. I’ll do that and test it.

Cheers
Dave

[L78_Nova]

I thought if there was no load present the voltage should be equal on both sides of the ballast resistor ? ie. The resistor only drops the voltage if there is draw across it.

[njsteve]

Originally Posted by L78_Nova

I thought if there was no load present the voltage should be equal on both sides of the ballast resistor ? ie. The resistor only drops the voltage if there is draw across it.

You have to be actively cranking the motor to check the cranking voltage and then again when its running. It should be something like 12 volts cranking and then 9 when running. You are correct: if you test a ballast resistor of the car it will be the same reading at both terminals if there is no (engine running) load on it.

Here's the original chapter from my 72 Trans Am saga with the wiring harness glitch. Has all the voltage testing info:

https://www.yenko.net/forum/showthre...ts#post1095635

BTW, what do the contact surfaces of the points look like? Mine were a really pretty, iridescent purple color from the high-voltage effect, down the arm from the burnt point, contact area.

[A12pilot]

That is actually incorrect. A ballast needs no draw of power, it just needs power supplied to one end for it to be reduced on the other end. By the basic dynamic function of the ballast, power going through it from one side to the other through the ceramic reduces the voltage to the determined level. Draw on one end does not affect the voltage drop. A ballast does the voltage drop by just doing what a ballast does, but it doesn't need a load on it. The 12V brown wire is needed on the ignition 1 circuit to bypass the ballast due to ballast limiting the volts through itself.

Cheers
Dave

[mockingbird812]

Huh, I just asked what time it was.......

[njsteve]

Originally Posted by A12pilot

That is actually incorrect. A ballast needs no draw of power, it just needs power supplied to one end for it to be reduced on the other end. By the basic dynamic function of the ballast, power going through it from one side to the other through the ceramic reduces the voltage to the determined level. Draw on one end does not affect the voltage drop. A ballast does the voltage drop by just doing what a ballast does, but it doesn't need a load on it. The 12V brown wire is needed on the ignition 1 circuit to bypass the ballast due to ballast limiting the volts through itself.

Cheers
Dave

and perhaps I would be feeding you fake advice to get you more frustrated? Hmmmmm

[A12pilot]

Bwahaha! I can always count on you Steve-o!

Now, not wanting to throw the towel in just yet, I slapped that harness back in to see what’s what here. Miraculously, the electrical gremlins I had have disappeared! Which leads me to believe that still something is goofy in it, but between Darrel’s key buzzer thingy and taking the harness back out and strangling it like Homer does to Bart, resulted in the weird gremlins going away. However....

It still won’t start and now I am getting 12V during cranking, around 7 at the run position. So that’s normal, but it still doesn’t start. That leads me into the next trouble shooting phase and that’s spark. Gas simply isn’t the issue.

Pulling the plugs, they’re all soaked and black. So they’re all fouled up. So that’s step one....why no spark? I put the engine back at 10 BTDC and pulled the cap off and here’s what I found doing that; the rotor was nowhere near pointing to #1, it was more toward #8. But I had set this exactly at #1 several times since I thought the timing was the initial problem.

So tomorrow I’ll try to start again and see what happens. What I’m seeing is I position it at 10 BTDC, wire it up, it fires right up. Then after a few minutes, it coughs sputters, laughs at me and then dies. If I go through this again and it repeats itself, and I find that the rotor is no longer pointing to that #1 cap position after it get the engine back to 10BTDC, what could it be? It’ll run and then the timing gets goofey after a few minutes. Keep in mind this engine was built by a guy that has built many, never had any issues, and it’s all good parts in there.

I think I’m getting close....

Cheers
Dave