Went to drive down to GoodGuys and hang out, Stopped for Icecream and the car would not start. Been noticing I have to keep the Optima batter on the Tender all the time, But not only was the battery drained in like 15 mins but when we jumped it the Positive cable was hot, then no Spar out of the elictronic distributor.... Not sure whats going on. My 14 year old son Asked....How do you go from best of show, to needing a tow... Smart A$$

Any thought?

 

My first thought is to throw away that Optima! JUNK imo. Some people are goig to pipe up with charging procedures for Optimas, but more often than not they are just flat out junk. Start with a known good battery and go from there.

And give that kid props.....that was just funny lol

 

x2 on the optima, a trickle charger or battery tender will not keep it charged. It needs a deep cycle charge. The voltage on the Optima should be 12.84 @ 100%, anything less than 12.6 means it needs a serious charge!

 

The positive battery cable getting hot is a big concern. This should happen only if the car did not want to start and you had to crank it a lot.
Sounds like you could have a big short somewhere - you need to find it soon. Feeling the wires coming off the horn relay could give you some clues. If they are all cold, then a short could exist in the starter or somewhere down below.

If a high enough voltage could not be had during cranking, then the electronic disty may not have had enough voltage to actually put out a spark.


Optima batteries - the designer label in car batteries......

 

I just got rid of my Optima battery. It was doing the same thing as yours. I haven't heard anything good about them at all. I'm running a generic one now and haven't had a problem since

 

[QUOTE=Lady72nRob71;303634] the electronic disty may not have had enough voltage to actually put out a spark.
QUOTE]

Hey Rob,

How does one check for the proper voltage on the distributor? I figure i'm under the hood, i may as well check everything..

I've got the standard HEi unit from '75.

Cheers and thanks!

Tony

 

Lemme try this quoting thing again, my fingers are fried from bashing a caliper on my dad's nissan sentra to try to unsieze a caliper...

Cheers,

Tony

 

Basically you would want 10V or higher at the + lead going to the disty during crank. Any lower and the thing may not want to spark. This threshold may vary widely depending on the electronics in the unit itself.
As for what lead the + is, it would depend on what disty it is - what year and model. I am no HEI expert for sure...

 

Best of show huh? congrats!

 

Ok guys, New battery, coil and coil wire, it started to start then just back to cranking... positive battery cable is hot. Could it be just the positive cable is bad and built up resistance? Pulled the coil wire and bumped the key no spark, Pulled the #1 plug wire to see if I can see spark, bumped the key and no visable spark. Could the mallory unit be toast? All other wires are cold and the positive only gets hot after a lot of cranking

 

Remove & test the starter & inspect all wiring from & to starter & also to your disty. Check grounds for all, batt to frame, batt to engine block, engine to frame & firewall. Something basic is wrong, you just haven't spent enough money yet.

 

Ok, Here we go. Started to pull fuses and noticed that the wire from the IGN on the fuse block to the HEI is MISSING lol seriously, the connector is still there but the damn wire is gone. ripped out some how. Now I have to find wich wire on the disty goes to the 12v source..... Weird Cant even find it in the engine bay, Like I dreamt of running the wire.... but that explains why it cranks and no spark.

Anyone know what color wire on a mallory unit needs the 12v?

 

Ok, Well got the car done, just redid the wires. I am not sure If I pulled that 12v wire or not. But I read on here that with the mallory unit the resistance wire would work and it did, Back on the road and problem seems to be solved

 

Did you make it to Puyallup? Bummer on the wiring. I missed Friday night cruise, had some friends come over last minute. Went tonight was pretty
wild night. Fired up a dragster and an altered out on the street.
Bumped into a buddy who was runner up at Friday night drags.
Fun night.

Glad you found a solution to your problem!