babailey

I have power to accessories, I have power to lights, the starter is engaging, and the carb is getting gas but I have no spark. The car ran fine yesterday and all I have done is replace a radio. I tried replacing the coil thinking that was about the only thing under the hood that could go bad in a short period of time, that did not help, I still have no spark. Any ideas?

Thanks!

Fun71

What type of ignition system do you have - breaker points, electronic points conversion, or HEI?

Have you checked all of the fuses to ensure none of them are blown?

babailey

I have the original breaker points. I have checked the fuses but I have been having issues with the fuse block and have a replacement Painless block to put in but I need to get this car out of my garage for a few days and don't have time to replace that just yet.

oldcutlass

Do you have 12v at the coil + terminal in both the start and run position? Are the points opening and closing and set to .016 gap?

babailey

oldcutlass

Is your battery low? If you don't have points, run a jumper wire from the battery+ to the coil+ terminal. If you still don't have spark I'd say you have a bad what ever is in there.

babailey

How is an original 1967 330 with a floor shift automatic supposed to react when you try to start it with the shifter not in Park? Would the starter engage but some circuit not engage that might prevent spark? or would the starter not engage at all?

oldcutlass

If the starter engages it will feed 12v to the coil+ terminal., with the key on only you should see 9ish volts. If the shifter is in park or neutral the starter will engage, it should not engage in gear/s or reverse. There is no circuit to prevent spark unless you have a kill switch somewhere.

Look to see where the red wire from the distributor is going, it will be connected to a 12v feed wire or the coil+ terminal and the black wire from the distributor will be connected to the coil-. Connect the red wire to the coil+ if its not already and run a jumper from the battery+ post to the coil+ terminal and crank the engine. If you still have no spark its most likely the points replacement kit in the distributor is bad. Either get a new one or revert back to points and condenser.

babailey

Thanks for the quick response. I'm on the road for Thanksgiving but I will try your jumper test when I get back to my car.

frankr442

If the problem started immediately after replacing the radio, I would look at everything touched during that job..

oldcutlass

While this may be true, the quick test I suggested above would rule out everything but the distributor. In addition he stated there was voltage in both the start and run key positions at the coil+ terminal.

If the car starts and the red wire from the distributor was hooked to another keyed supply feed other than the coil + terminal then yes the radio install as a cause would be suspect.

babailey

oldcutlass

An HEI is not a plug and play mod. It needs a full 12v to run right and your stock timing stings are n/a. If it ran good before, why not repair the distributor you have?

babailey

Fun71

Not really mandatory to change the plug gap. You can open it slightly if you want - I gap mine at .040-.045 instead of .035, but I wouldn't go any wider.

babailey

I finally got to spend some quality time with the Cutlass last weekend. It turns out that I managed to short out the 12v wire to the coil (for starting purposes) while I was doing the other new wiring. So, I was sending my starting circuit 12v directly to ground. She is back on the road. However, I will be replacing the fuse block with a Painless 30001 Fuse Block and I will be putting in an HEI Distributor soon as well.

Thanks for the help guys!

oldcutlass

Glad you got it running