Engine fires intermittently
Thread Starter
Racer
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 313
Likes: 8
From: MILFORD OH
Engine fires intermittently
Appears to be a fairly good spark from the high tension lead on the coil. But is it possible the coil could still be the problem. Also, what it the purpose of the ballast on the firewall.
Any help is always appreciated.........
Any help is always appreciated.........
Tech Contributor
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 15,576
Likes: 118
From: Conroe Texas
The ballast reduces the current going to the points to keep them from burning up. When you start the car the ballast is bypassed to send full voltage.
It's not clear what problem you are trying to describe for your car, but if it starts and runs until you let go of the ignition key, then the problem is probably a bad ballast resistor.
It's not clear what problem you are trying to describe for your car, but if it starts and runs until you let go of the ignition key, then the problem is probably a bad ballast resistor.
Thread Starter
Racer
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 313
Likes: 8
From: MILFORD OH
The ballast reduces the current going to the points to keep them from burning up. When you start the car the ballast is bypassed to send full voltage.
It's not clear what problem you are trying to describe for your car, but if it starts and runs until you let go of the ignition key, then the problem is probably a bad ballast resistor.
It's not clear what problem you are trying to describe for your car, but if it starts and runs until you let go of the ignition key, then the problem is probably a bad ballast resistor.
Some are and some are not. This is the reason for thinking the coil could be bad. Is their a way to check with an ohmmeter.....
Team Owner
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 58,061
Likes: 7,145
Army
One of the last places I would look would be the coil - you could have a bad distributor cap/rotor, plug wires, flaky points, fouled plugs.
If its an intermittent problem then the ohm reading of the coil doesn't provide much - could be you measure it when its acting OK. Its simple enough to swap out after you check out the other areas.
If its an intermittent problem then the ohm reading of the coil doesn't provide much - could be you measure it when its acting OK. Its simple enough to swap out after you check out the other areas.
Thread Starter
Racer
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 313
Likes: 8
From: MILFORD OH
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Advanced
Joined: Jan 2007
Posts: 90
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From: NORTHERN NJ
You have to pull the distributor out; at the bottom of the distributor above the driven gear, there are shims which control the spacing between the gear and the housing; put a feeler gage(gages) between the shims and the housing until you feel slight resistance; add -up all the gages used and this will be the clearance between the gear and the housing; check this number against the spec for your distributor; I believe this clearance should be between .001" to .007". If it is greater than .007", buy a shim kit from any of the parts suppliers and shim it to get into the range, the lower the better.