With points ign you should have another wire at the pos term. that goes down to the R term of the starter.
Can you follow the yellow fuzzy wire and see where it goes ?

 

ok-i feel like i'm learning something

The yellow wire connects to a bunch of other wires all taped up. Where my index finger is is the yellow wire coming from the + term on the coil. From there it's all taped up, and the other end of the yellow fuzzy wire where my middle finger is goes into the firewall. The brown and red wires near my ring finger go to bottom of the distributor. The black wire goes to the negative terminal on the coil. I followed the other end of the taped up bunch of wires and it goes to the alt.

 

i checked the starter and there's a black wire going from the starter to a taped up bunch of wires. i tried to follow it...it goes behind the dist...but kinda lost it.

I did find a couple things interesting/suspect. First off, when trying to trace the wire from the starter i noticed a green wire going to the engine ...the plastic piece that attaches to the engine looks quite beat up to me.



Also, when tracing the wire from the starter i noticed the follow wire disconnected near the master cylinder. Not sure what this is or if it's an issue. Part of T.I. that is disconnected maybe?

 

Wow that's looking ugly. OK then you have more than 1 wire going into the dist ?
That mess of wire looks like the TI harness that is added in to the standard harness.
At this point I can't tell by looking at the pics if your car has been converted to points or its still a TI.
Here is a TI diagram,see if you can trace some of the wires.

 

............Sorry I answered in your quote

 

Well, earlier i said there was 1 wire coming from the distributor, but to be more specific..there is 1 wire, but it's a double wire (two wires in one casing, kind of like speaker wire). The "mess of wires" in the picture above i said has the brown and red wires going to the distributor...but i should have been more specific by saying they don't go directly to the distributor, there's a plastic connector. The brown and red are attached to a connector that plugs into another connector...and out the other side is that (double) yellow wire that goes to the bottom of the distributor. There's actually a third red wire attached to that connector along with the brown and red...so those three plug in and out the other side is one double yellow wire going to the dist. I couldn't really follow where that third red wire comes from but will try to later when i have more time. Can also take a picture if that helps. Actually though in post #22 you can see the connector with the three wires just to the right of my hand.

Thanks for the diagram...hopefully i'll be able to make some sense out of what i have to determine if i have T.I. hooked up or if someone converted to points. I'll try to trace it all later this evening.

Back to the original problem/question....based on what we've been discussing, IF it's a points dist do you still think it could be the ignition switch or something else? IF it turns out i still have T.I. setup do you have any initial thinking as to what i should be chasing in that case?

Thanks,
Paul

 

Hate to jump in the middle here...

I might have missed it somewhere but I got the impression that it was turning over but not starting

If you have a timing light, hook it up and see if your getting spark or not.

After if does not start, if you let it sit and cool down (like an hour) will it start?
Do you have to pump the gas?

If it starts again after it cools down, like the problem would likely be heat related.

If there is no spark, the coil could be going south. Borrow one from someone and give it a try.

Pop the cap of the dist. and see what's really in there and how it looks, maybe the points are borderline shot.

If there is spark, check to see if it's getting fuel when you hit the gas.

Mine used to do this, it would get so hot that it was like it boiled the carb dry or something. When I stopped it would start right back up but if I let it sit for 5 minutes I'd have to pump the gas a bunch of times to get fuel back. I rebuilt the carb and added a heat shield, (one of the two fixed the problem, probably the rebuild)

Anyway, try to narrow down the actual symptoms before tearing too much apart.

 

Thanks for your input Mooser.

Correct...it does turn over but just doesn't start when warm. Oddly, turning the key back into the off position sometimes triggers it to start.

Yes, after cooling down it will start again

Yes, when starting cold i have to pump the gas. When warm i have to put my foot to the floor to start it. Because i have trouble getting it started when warm i find pumping the gas after initial start could lead to me flooding the engine.

Great idea. I have a timing light, so tonight i will hook it up after the car's warm and see if i get a spark. I'm assuming i should try the light on all cylinders? Or should i just test #1?

Thanks,
Paul

 

All indications now say its a TI. If you want to be 100% you can pop the cap.
Tracing the wires to establish what is actually hooked up will help.

The description you gave of "starting upon releasing the key" makes me think its possible the wire coming from the R term on the starter going to the TI harness has been eliminated or is not making constant contact.
Paul this is where I'm going to have to back off a bit and seek some help from some guys that are more familiar with the TI option. We need to proceed with caution, we don't want to damage the very expensive TI amplifier.
Does anyone have a GM diagnosis procedure for the TI ?
I will also send 69427 a PM and seek his help.

 

I agree with you and Mooser. We need to get the cap pulled to see what's actually there. After a dozen posts the question of what's under the cap still appears to be unanswered.

It's been a few years since I last saw a schematic of the TI amplifier internals, but a couple things come to mind. IIRC, in a TI system (unlike an HEI) the dwell is normally on, and the pickup waveform turns the coil OFF (whereas the dwell is normally off in an HEI, and the waveform turns the dwell ON). With a TI system you may get a spark when you first turn the key off, as you interrupted the current through the coil. Is this what the OP is seeing?
Also, the TI uses a unique coil for a couple reasons (and it's not a good idea to swap in a standard coil for testing). The coil is a low primary inductance winding (which helps out with high RPM energy storage), but it also has a higher secondary/primary winding ratio (approximately 150:1 or something, versus 100:1 for a points coil) so that during plug firing the reflected voltage at the primary terminal (and more specifically the switching transistor) will be lower. Putting a standard coil in the system will raise the primary voltage spike seen by the switching transistor, possibly damaging it.

Might be more info than anyone cares about, given that we're still unclear about if the distributor has points or a reluctance sensor.

 

Distributor cap is off.



i'm going to also pull my timing light later when i get more time and do the test Mooser suggested. But for now, here's the picture of the distributor...


guys, i appreciate your help and patience with me.

 

That is a TI distributor.

 

Thanks Roger. Where do you guys propose i go from here?

 

Warm it up and get it to not start, check for spark. Use a timing light if you have one.
Just check any plug, it's either working or not (ok, maybe check more than one just in case)
Mooser

 

Ok - here's an update on this issue.

I didn't do the timing light test yesterday because my battery was dead and left it overnight to charge (haven't driven the car much because of this issue...have been driving the other toy). Long story short, the battery ended up being bad, so i replaced it this morning. After starting the car and letting it run with the hood open i noticed a pretty significant exhaust leak coming from the passenger side manifold at the end closest to the firewall. One of the bolts on that side was loose, so I tightened everything up and that stopped the leak.

It's too soon to tell but so far i have not been able to reproduce the problem. I doubt the battery was to blame because the battery that was in there was fairly new and i had this problem for quite some time now (my bad for not hooking it up to a battery tender and let it sit too long drained which probably destroyed the battery). I'm hoping the problem was simply a heat problem as a result of the leaky exhaust manifold. Anyway, i'm going to drive it a lot more over the next week and see if the problem is resolved. If not, i'll try the timing light and take it from there...but finger's crossed that this is resolved.

Based on the problem as i described it (only trouble starting when the car was warm), do you guys think something as simple as exhaust leak could be to blame?

 

Anything is possible but I doubt the exhaust leak was the problem.
Seems like I remember someone saying the TIs were voltage sensitive,so maybe a battery with low voltage during cranking could cause the problem.

 

If it's not your ignition switch I would say it's your carb choke. If it starts every time on a cold start but then when hot it won't restart it sounds like your shoke is sticking closed. Start the car cold as it warms up watch the butterfly it should slowly open to full. when it opens to full shut the car off, if the butterfly closes your choke is shot , replace it with an electric choke. Good luck.

 

Paul,have you established whether the wire coming from the R terminal on the solenoid is hooked up ? It appears from the diagram I posted the wire could be unplugged.
This wire coming from the R terminal feeds power directly from the large POS wire to the ignition system ONLY during cranking.

One other thought,if the condition returns,try pausing the key in the ON position for a second before turning the key all the way to crank. Some trans ign do better using this method.

 

.
Thanks for the suggestion. The choke seems to be operating correctly from what i can tell. I do recall once some time back when i was having this problem manually adjusting the choke just to ensure that it was all the way open....and it didn't help. That is one of the reasons i was thinking there was something else going on.

Thanks Roger. When you say solenoid, do you mean the thing attached to the top of the starter? i did notice (from what i could see just looking in the engine compartment) that there appears to be two wires hooked up (assuming we're talking about the same thing). If you can confirm that i'm looking in the right area i will lift the car so i can crawl under there and confirm that the R terminal is hooked up. BTW - there is also another black wire coming from the bottom (fatter part) of the starter on the opposite end (end closer to the firewall). Anyway, if you can confirm that i'm looking at the right thing i will check into it further...or if i'm not making sense i can snap a quick picture to better illustrate

Thanks. I'll try this if I'm able to reproduce the problem. I'm going away on a business trip for a couple days so while my addiction to the forum will follow me (reading posts etc), i won't be near the car to do further troubleshooting.

Thanks,
Paul

 

Am I missing something, or does this sound more like heat soak than anything else? I mean, if it's an electrical issue, it's gonna be constant, no matter when or where. Seems to me, you have an issue starting the car after it has ran for a bit. That would suggest that your starter is getting hot, and not producing the torque needed to turn it over fast enough to start it. Or am I wrong?