All, Did a tune up today. Changed points, plugs, wires, etc... We (father and myself) followed the manual. When we were finished, It would not start. It turns over but will not fire. Suggestions?

 

Are your points opening and closing....it wont start if they are not and you will need to gap em or adjust with a dwell meter.

 

Distributor 180 degrees off?

 

First are you getting spark at the spark plugs?

If so are you sure you put the wires on in the correct order? Unlike Chevys Oldsmobile distributors turn counter clockwise.

 

Some part of the points touching ground, or wire to points pinched under a screw, shorting to ground?

More info would help.

- Eric

 

Did you install the rotor?

Helps to know what car/engine too. In addition to CCW distributor rotation, 1964-earlier Rocket engine firing order is different from 64 330 and 65-later.

 

Did you remove the distributor and/or the wires? If yes, then double check all the previous mentioned. The distributor cap has a tab on the bottom on the inside that has to fit in a small cutout in the distributor base to index it properly. As you lightly install the cap, you rotate it until you feel the tab line up and drop into the cutout, and you can push the cap down a little tighter to fully seat it. If it is wrong, you may still be able to attach the two spring loaded screws on the cap, but the rotor won't line up with the terminals in the cap, or it may even contact some of them and ruin the cap and rotor.

Another possibility is a bad primary wire, which is the black wire that hooks to the points, goes out the bottom of the distributor and hooks to the NEGATIVE terminal of the coil. I had one that all the metal wire strands had broken from years of bending and flexing, but the plastic insulation was still partially in place, so the wire wasn't in 2 pieces. That cost me 50 cents to fix, after I had spent over $500 at the dealer. And those are in 1974 dollars!

 

Hey, all thanks for the replies. It turns out that there was something wrong with the new points. We put the old ones back in and she fired right up.

 

I had a similar problem with a new condenser I put in, ended up reinstalling the original one and it ran fine.

 

Did you put a dwell meter on it as you cranked it. In the old days, when these cars were new and the parts like points were made in America, you could install them and the car almost always would start. You used the dwell meter to adjust them, but they were usually close right out of the box. Now days, some points are just plain junk. Others are just way out of adjustment.

I'd try reinstalling the new points with dwell meter hooked up. Insert the allen wrench into the points and have someone crank, while you turn the allen to set the dwell.