Motor cranks, no spark

[BHBronco]

In the process of firing the rebuilt 302 on my 69. I have been turning it over a few times, I have clean fuel in the tank and it seems to have reached the carb as well since it drips out of the fuel inlet when I pulled the hose off. I just put one of those inline spark lights in between the plug and the ignition wire and it didn't illuminate.
I'm running a pertronix hei distributor but I checked the hot lead to the coil pack and it only registers about 2 volts with the key in the 'on' position. I also figure I need a ground strap to ground to the engine block to the frame.

 

[bmc69]

t I checked the hot lead to the coil pack and it only registers about 2 volts with the key in the 'on' position. I also figure I need a ground strap to ground to the engine block to the frame.

2V?...sum ting wong. And yes, the engine should be well grounded to the frame and, especially, to the body.

 

[BHBronco]

It should read 12 correct? I'm assuming it would. I converted this rig from an I6 to a 302 and I just took the two wires on the old wiring harness that went into the coil and spliced them to one to power the hei distributor.

 

[BHBronco]

Rewired the lead to the distributor and now it reads around 11 volts. Yet still when I crank it I can't get any spark. Beginning to run out of ideas.?:?

 

[bmc69]

Rewired the lead to the distributor and now it reads around 11 volts. Yet still when I crank it I can't get any spark. Beginning to run out of ideas.?:?

Perhaps you could sketch out a diagram of how you've wired the ignition....take a pic with your phone and post it.

 

[Firedog67]

Have you tried running a fused hot wire direct from battery to pertronix? If that works then you may be getting your power supply from the wrong source. When you turn key to ignition there is several hots to find, but some of them momentarily interupt in the start cycle. Just a thought.

 

[BHBronco]

Will take a picture of the set up shortly.
I haven't tried that, but I have the brown wire that comes off the starter relay spliced into the new wire that I replaced the ballast resistor wire with that runs to the ignition switch. If I run a constant hot lead to the distributor won't that ruin the coil?
Also I goofed, my other vehicle has a pertronix coil, but the bronco is running a proform hei distributor.

 

[Firedog67]

It was just to rule out the power issue being supplied and not to be a permant fix.

 

[BHBronco]

Update:
The wire that I ran from the ignition switch to the coil has now melted and broken off. Is this going to be a problem in the future? Do I need a relay now? And if so how would I go about doing that?

 

[Justafordguy]

Unless you ran a really small ga wire you must have a short in your HEI dist. Normally it shouldn't draw much current.

 

[70_Steve]

I'm running a pertronix hei distributor but I checked the hot lead to the coil pack and it only registers about 2 volts with the key in the 'on' position. I also figure I need a ground strap to ground to the engine block to the frame.

2V?...sum ting wong. And yes, the engine should be well grounded to the frame and, especially, to the body.

To get the engine to run, the engine needs to be grounded back to the negative side of the battery. To get everything else to work, the body and frame need to be grounded.

Where was the minus ( - ) side of your meter connected when you were measuring only 2 volts at the coil?

 

[BHBronco]

The engine, body and battery are all grounded to the same point on the frame, right next to the front PS body mount.

 

[BHBronco]

Unless you ran a really small ga wire you must have a short in your HEI dist. Normally it shouldn't draw much current.

How would I check this? Also thinking maybe I should make a relay to provide 12V to the distributor so I don't melt my ignition switch. Thoughts?

 

[BHBronco]

I just checked the coil with resistance with a multimeter. Primary coil is less than one ohm and the secondary reads 7.28 with the ohmmeter set to 20k. Is there anything else in the distributor that could go bad?

 

[BHBronco]

When I went back to work on it later today, the starter relay went bad. I had just bought this about a week ago. When I turned the key to start I didn't get any power to the post with the brown wire on it that supplies power to the coil while cranking. Once the key was returned to the on position the voltage on that post briefly jumped to about 4V.

So tomorrow I am planning on replacing the starter solenoid and also rigging up an ignition relay. The ignition relay is going to have a 12V battery lead feeding into the coil wire with the 'on' and 'start' wires serving as the signal.

Also since I have a one wire alternator and don't need the voltage regulator do I need that green with red striped wire that also comes off the 'on' post? I was going to splice that into my relay signal wire since the resistor wire melted.

http://seabiscuit68.tripod.com/images/68-71ignition-color.gif

 

[DirtDonk]

You don't necessarily need the wire, but you might. And even if you don't now, it's likely to come in handy later. So don't cut it off completely.

I have to ask too, do you have a specific "1-wire" alternator? Or are you just running a later model internally regulated alternator like a Ford 3G or something of the type?
Just checking. If the latter, you will still need that Green w/red wire to turn on the alternator.

If you don't need that wire for the new alternator (and maybe even if you do) you're right that it might be a perfect wire for energizing your new ignition relay.
You could even have used the old Yellow wire from the regulator as your "30" wire to the new relay. But since you already have that powered directly off the old starter relay, no reason to change yet. Other than to re-purpose existing wires to clean things up.

Paul