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Stopped to get gas this morning, then went to start car and NOTHING! No gauge movement, no crank, etc... Battery is good. Luckily was across the street from work and had assistance to push it over. Now that I’m looking at it, I’m not finding anything obvious. I’m getting power to the starter, but there’s nothing at the alternator power wire. I’ve noticed that sometimes my ignition lock cylinder didn’t always “kick back” from Stsrt to Run, I have to manually turn CCW once it starts, so was wondering if I had an ignition issue here???
I have the steering column dropped and access to the “harmonica” harness... can I supply power anywhere to “bypass” the ignition switch?
Thanks for the suggestions and tips! Turned out to be a burnt connector in a wire going from the starter to the alternator. Red wire, approx 8-10 ga. plastic connector located just behind the rear of the fuse block. Had voltage on the starter side, but nothing on the alternator side.
Not yet sure why it burnt/melted, but it didn't really look "fresh"; more like it's been happening over time (like 42 years!). Will be keeping an eye on it just in case!
Last edited by DR76; Mar 10, 2018 at 01:06 AM.
Reason: typo
Thanks for the suggestions and tips! Turned out to be a burnt connector in a wire going from the starter to the alternator. Red wire, approx 8-10 ga. plastic connector located just behind the rear of the fuse block. Had voltage on the starter side, but nothing on the alternator side.
Not yet sure why it burnt/melted, but it didn't really look "fresh"; more like it's been happening over time (like 42 years!). Will be keeping an eye on it just in case!
Probably just a bad connection- HOWEVER-
And another thing to check would be the resistance to ground (Chassis) from the engine. A bad ground strap from the engine will also aggravate the problem you had.
Take you meter and measure the resistance from say the alternator case to a clean -bare metal surface on the chassis- should be well under 1Ω. Disclaimer- put the two leads together and see what the meter's own resistance is-subtract that from your total.
Testing ignition switch ‘76
