Help starting!

[bwjohn]

Hello Guys,
I will do my best on this but, I am quite new to working on vehicles of this age. So, some of your questions I may not be able to answer, or will probably give you incomplete information to help answer my question.

Onto the problem:

My 73 will not start!! Original engine, aftermarket holley carb, new plugs, plug wires, distributor, carb has been rebuilt recently.

We checked spark from the plugs, have that.
Checked timing quite extensively yesterday and we feel that we are correct.
We are pouring gas straight down the carb and using starter fluid.
Had compression on cylinder 1 when turning the engine over.
Was trying to look at the electrical when we gave up last night. Was getting 4 volts to the coil, 10 at the solenoid, 12 where it came out of the fire wall. I think those are suppose to be at 6, 12 and 12.

I bought my Bronco about 6/7 years ago now. It ran, and i drove it quite a bit. There was one winter were I was quite busy and didn't get to drive it. Came around to the spring and tried to run it and it would start run and idle, but when getting over 40/45 mph it would stall out. The problem got worse until it would stall out around 25/30 then would only idle and then it would only start and idle for about 5 minutes then die. Now it will not start at all.

Thoughts on things to try?

thank you Brandon

 

[gr8scott]

Find TDC on piston 1 on the compression stroke. Remove the cap and verify the rotor is pointed to the #1 spark plug wire.

So you bought a new distributor? Which one?

 

[bwjohn]

We did check that the rotor is pointed at spark plug 1, when cylinder 1 was in compression.

I just bought a simple stock replacement from car quest. It did run after I put the new distributor on.

I was not going fancy on the parts at this point, I was just enjoying driving it.

 

[nvrstuk]

Did you put all the rest of the parts and do the rest of the work BEFORE or AFTER it ran with the new distributor? IMPORTANT question.

If it ran after all the new parts and new distributor and now it doesn't, then you might look at checking out the "new" distributor.

 

[DirtDonk]

Since it's a '73 then a stock distributor has points and condenser. Modern points, but even more so modern condensers suck big time!

That 4v reading at the coils is way too low. But try this as a test. Remove the Black wire from the coil's negative terminal (the one that comes from the distributor) and see if the voltage goes up. Let us know the result.

If you have radio noise suppressors (looks like a condenser/capacitor and that's what they are) at the coil's positive side disconnect it temporarily.

And speaking of bum components causing trouble... If you have a tachometer disconnect it from the coil as well.

If you disconnect the Red w/green wire from the positive side of the coil and measure voltage with it separate from the coil you should see closer to 12v.

And even though this has nothing to do with ignition problems, if you still have the original style fuse panel in the glove box and have never cleaned it, do so. Pull all the fuses out and wipe them down, brush the contact points in the panel and then put the fuses back in.
This is just a good practice every few years to keep the electricity flowing freely. You don't want to see big drops in voltage in the system. If the battery is at 12.6v then you really want to see that same voltage throughout (except for the ignition coil when it's running of course) the system. Some drops can't be avoided with this old wiring, but keeping it to a minimum is important. Wherever you see more than a 1v drop, it would be good to figure out how to get some of it back.

Good luck.

Paul

 

[bwjohn]

It did run after the “new” distributor.

We will work on the voltage. We do get a read from the ignition switch out of the firewall.

 

[nvrstuk]

Paul had a nice complete range of tests and checks for you . Do those and let us know what you have.

 

[bwjohn]

It seems like the points have gone bad and we were just off on our timing.

Got it running!

On to the next issue, always something.

thanks for the input, brandon

 

[DirtDonk]

Great news! Thanks for the follow-up to let us know what you found.
Sometimes you have to re-check things that you "just know have to be good" only to find out they're not anymore.
It's worse with new parts in fact. The newer they are, the more likely they are to fail to do their jobs prematurely.

Paul