carriljc

..just looking for hints of mostly likely culprit before I start troubleshooting.
Any ideas?

...Roger...

Is the ign system stock ?

Alan 71

Hi c,
Running well? or acting like it wants to stop running but can't?
Regards,
Alan

carriljc

It's easy enough to kill. Put it in gear, hold the brakes, and let out the clutch. But, it just happened for the first time last weekend.

csierp

What gas are you using? You might try using a higher test

...Roger...

You have 2 wires that feed the pos side of the ign coil,sounds like one of them has power when it shouldn't have.
Generally both are crimped together in a single connector.
One comes from the ign switch and the other from the R term of the starter solenoid.
You could start by removing the one from solenoid and then seeing if the problem goes away.
If it doesn't go away the ign switch might be bad.

oldalaskaman

another possibility is that your alternator is back feeding your ignition, if you could describe what you did prior to this issue?

oldsarge

Curios, what causes an alternator to back feed to the ignition. Not to rob the post but I am having similar problems, this could be it ????? What to check for ????

Vette5.5

This usually happens when installing aftermarket ignition systems like MSD 6A. The ignition can get back fed through the dash indicator gauge or light. This is normally solved by installing a diode between the alternator and dash indicator light.

oldalaskaman

excellent info , could also be as simple as the dash light bulb being burned out or not being included in an aftermarket system, it provides enough resistance to activate or excite the charging and also enough resistance to prevent the alt. back feeding the ignition....sometimes. if your system doesnt have a light, usually you have a resistance wire in the 'excite' wire that does this function BTW there are other issues that cause this, bad ignition switch being one.

carriljc

SO...I guess I'll check those leads coming from the coil.....for all I know the ignition switch is 44 years old

Many thanks to all...

carriljc

I have a spare alternator and I swapped it out. No change.

I took out the ignition switch, tore it apart, cleaned and rebuilt it. No change.

Quite easy to check since every time I hooked up the battery every "ON" type function would come on. ....heck, it even happened with ignition switch unplugged (I should have started there).

SO...after some troubleshooting with an ammetter hooked up between and the negative lead and the negative terminal, it looks like every time I wiggle the big post on the starter solenoid my no-loads amps start jumping all over the place.

I think I'll take the starter out. Replace it. (Should have a lifetime warranty somewhere.

hdpete98

Could be a bad sector gear.

carriljc

When I would wiggle the wire going to big post the amps would jump up over 200 ma...and everything felt really solid too. It was pretty bad that the best I could get was ~45 ma.....that was a little high.

It took me a while to convince the guy at the parts counter that "I know the starter works....." and then trying to convince him that I had an intermittent electrical contact in the solenoid wasn't getting anywhere.... I think he finally just replaced it because customers were lining up.

I put it all back together and I get a max of ~10 ma.