Please oldsmobile guys i need help my car wont start i recently purchased a 68 442 with a 455 motor it was park fir more than ten years we manage to turn the motor by hand and put some w40 into the pistons so it got loose quick .. So then we replaced the ignition condencer the points, rotor and distributor cap and the coil but the car wont start we unpluged the sparkplugs wires and theres no spark on the wires so what could it be wrong the motor spins but it wont fired up???

 

I'm not great with electrical stuff, but my motto is always start with the simplest thing first and hope you find the problem soon! I'd check the points and condensor wiring to make sure you have it in there correctly. Then check the point gap. also make sure you have the cap wired in the correct rotation. That's probably not the problem if you have no spark, but I've gotten some pretty loud backfires when I wired it wrong! Then check the coil wires, do you have the wire from the distributor on the correct post? Start there and let us know what you find. John

 

Tanx for the quick response sir me and my uncle spent more than 12 hours trying to fired up the motor i am so dissapointed we already did all that got a new coil new everithyng when we crank the ignition the motor moves but there is no spark on the wires could the distribuitor base be bad??? Somebody sujested me to replace the distributor..

 

Have you confirmed the distributor is rotating? Remove the cap and turn over the engine. Also, you may have to wait until its dark but if you rotate the engine with the cap off you should be able to see a spark as the points open. I have had three condensors go bad on me, one had less than 10 miles on it. So if you don't have spark at the points you might try another condensor.

OK, that's my shot at it... someone else will have to speak up on what other things they can check. John

 

We already did that the rotor does spin and the points do open but there is no spark in it thats y. We also changed the coil..

 

Hi, you could check if the distributor base plate is loose. I've had that on a pontiac that wouldn't start though everything else was new. Changed the distributor and it fired up in no time...

 

Did you change the wires that go to the plugs amd the coil? (did not see that on your list) make sure the end of the wires are not scorched (especially wire from distibuter cap to coil) Did you check to make sure there is 12v power coming in to the coil? Is the groud strap connected on the engine?

 

I'm with "dave" and think the first place I'd start, is checking if you have 12v power coming into the ignition system. If you don't already have a multimeter tester, you can pick one up quite cheaply from places like Sears or Harbor Frieght. Pretty much a must have, when working on older cars.

 

Im tire of trying everithyng so am goimg with a electronic distributor from ebay cost me 60 dollars my uncle told me that the stock distributor is gunna give me a bunch of problems he says i have to change it anyways so am going with that..

 

If you hook up the HEI incorrectly you will still have a problem. Stock distributers are pretty simple and there is no reason to trash it unless you prefer something else.

 

And yet, you still didn't verify that you have voltage to the ignition system?

Personally, I like to check the stuff that's free before spending cash.