mayberg

Friends,

I've changed spark plugs (reconnected the existing wires), breaker points (I think I have the initial point gap set OK, but see this post about uni-points http://forums.corvetteforum.com/zerothread?id=533970), rotor (no cap yet - I'll do that when I change plug wires later), plugged the coil wire back in and tried to fire it up to set dwell and timing.

No fire. I missed something.

Is setting the initial point gap that sensitive? I can't get a feeler guage in there, so I'm just eye-balling it. I'm putting the cam block on the point thingy - the corner to open the point, and the opening appears to be within a reasonable tolerance to the 0.019 initial setting.

I couldn't have screwed up plug wires, because I haven't yet changed them out - simply reconnected after changing plugs. The coil wire to the cap is back in. The rotor went on fine. The breaker points are the uni-points thingy, but as far as I can tell I have it installed correctly.

What did I miss? Help me get Miranda back on the road.

The Money Pit

Try putting your old points back.I helped a friend with his truck after he did a tune up and it did the same thing. Something wrong with the new points.

Stewart's74

It's probably something really simple. Here's an example. I was doing a tune-up on my 74. New cap, rotor, points etc. I had the same problem, the car would not fire. I musta screwed around for 45 minutes trying everything I could think of. I was PO'd. I decided I'd be better off to call it a day and try again tomorrow.
Next day I walk in the garage and the first thing that catches my eye is the new rotor sitting on the roof of the car. I had forgotten to put it in :banghead: :bb

GaryS

:iagree:
Yep, put me in that same boat. Like DUY! Double check your point gap, make sure your coil is firing. Double check your wires.
Gary

The Dude

Forgetting to replace the rotor has bitten me, too.

Another time the car wouldn't fire no matter what I did. Turns out I neglected to reattach the 12V ignition wire to the HEI that powers the thing.

Ironcross

Thats impossible! :lol:

rollavette71

Did you remove/replace the capacitor? It will not fire without one that works.
I replaced mine last fall and got a bad one (shorted)... took me a couple hours of diagnostic work to figure it out. If you put a new one in, try putting the old one back in.

Hank :cheers:

PRNDL

I thought I was the only one!! :lolg: :lolg: :lolg: :lolg:

MJ

mayberg

Well, thanks for everyone's input. I was able to start it with the old point set and rotor.

I ended up making a run to NAPA to get another point set without the uni-points arrangement. Then, after setting the point gap with a feeler guage (now that I can reach in there) and reinstalling the new parts, everything is working fine. I suspect that even after eye-balling the point gap on the uni-points I still wasn't in the ballpark and thus the trouble starting the car.

So, I set the dwell and I'm waiting on getting an obstruction wrench (can you believe that two Sears in town are out of the 9/16" obstruction wrench) in order to set the timing.

BTW, the distributor wrench you get from Sears doesn't get to the distributor bolt on my 454.