Engine squeak/squeal

[Dragon]

6.6 to 4.5 volts DC comes from the cab resistor to the coil + terminal. The minus goes to the points. Points set at .017 If the points is open you will have 6.6 to 4.5 Vdc to ground. If closed 0 Vdc Minus off coil: Resistance Minus to points closed 0 to .2 ohms Coil minus to ground infinity same with positive. Positive to High Voltage terminal is about 2000 ohms. Resistor wires are 5000 ohms per foot. More than that and they are causing problems.

[fordman]

check to see if you have spark at the coil. then check to see if you have spark when the points open. make sure the condensor inside the dist is grounded good. and the points adjusted properly. then check what dragon is saying about power to the coil. the little brown wire on the solinoid goes to the back stud. the front little stud wire should be red. if you swap then or leave one off it might not start either. but since it was cranking over thats probably not the problem.

[rwilliam99]

Thanks for the tips. That is the weird thing, though. Nothing was changed/moved after the accident, and it was running fine before. There appears to be no power to the positive side of the coil. Another question (forgive me if it sounds stupid, but electrical work isn't my strong point): Should there ALWAYS be 12 volts on the positive side of the coil if the key is on? No matter if the points are open or closed? Or should I only see voltage if the points are either opened or closed?

I don't think we will be able to work on it until Wednesday, but I'll post back after that.

[Dragon]

The positive side is hooked through the resistor wire and most coils fry if they get 12Vs the resistor wire is under the dash and is pink. it puts out 6.5 running and 4.x when not running. Check and see if any wires were disconnected under the dash because of the impact knocking them loose.

[fordman]

or the resistor wire could have burned in half in the wreck.

[DuckRyder]

If you had the front end sheet metal off, make sure everything is recoonected properly, particularly the grounds. The solinoid grounds through the sheetmetal...

[rwilliam99]

OK, I couldn't wait until Wednesday, so I went out in the dark tonight and here is what I found. From the ignition switch, at some point in the past it was replaced, so someone cut the wires and used butt connectors to install the new one. The pink (resistor) wire connector is getting power from the switch. The wire where the spliced it in was almost cut, so I fixed that. I then traced back from the engine to the 3 bullet connector under the dash. What I found there is the white/red stripe bullet has power, but the pink/brown bullet does not. Based on this, I'm guessing that the pink resistor wire broke/burnt out somewhere under the dash?

Does that sound like a reasonable conclusion? If so, is there anything special about that wire, or should I just be able to go down to NAPA and purchase a new one?

Does this look like the correct part? resistor wire

[Dragon]

Yes that would explain it.

[rwilliam99]

If you had the front end sheet metal off, make sure everything is recoonected properly, particularly the grounds. The solinoid grounds through the sheetmetal...

I think we've got all that covered. The headlights didn't work right away, and that was due to the ground, but everything else seems to be working. The solenoid appears to be working fine. It cranks and cranks and cranks, it just won't spark. It looks like it might be the resistor wire....

[Dragon]

Add a wire from the other small terminal of the solenoid and hook it to the positive coil terminal if it cranks and starts then dies when the cranking stops the resistor wire is bad.

[rwilliam99]

Add a wire from the other small terminal of the solenoid and hook it to the positive coil terminal if it cranks and starts then dies when the cranking stops the resistor wire is bad.

WOOHOO!!! That was it! I ran a wire just like you said and it fired RIGHT up (and then promptly died when I stopped cranking).

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! (and my son thanks you too!)

Now I just have to find the correct wire....

[Dragon]

Actually you can mount a resistor block from a Chevy on the firewall and just run regular non resistor wire to the coil. I do that anytime the resistor wire fails They come in different values. But close to two ohms is good. The block is white ceramic with 2 terminals and a mounting bracket.

[fordman]

yeah that napa wire looks right . but the resistor block thing will work also.

[rwilliam99]

OK, so the saga continues....My son got a universal resistor block, we wired it up and got no spark, however we did get power to the distributor with the key on, which was an improvement. After much discussion, switching coils, etc, we found that one of his friends re-installed the starter relay incorrectly. One of the wires that should have gone to one of the large posts had been grounded. Once we got that fixed, it started and ran pretty well. Then the header started smoking (new header and the paint was getting cooked), so my son went to shut it off and it didn't want to stop. He messed with the key a bit and it finally stopped, but we have to investigate that. I'm guessing the ignition switch is dirty and/or some of the wires on the back are loose after messing with it.

A question on wiring up the universal resistor: Here is how we wired it (the wire numbers are from the wiring diagram here):

Wire 16A from the switch (a new, non-resistance wire) to one side of the resistor
Wire 16 (the other side of the "D" connector) and wire 262 on the other side of the resistor

Wire 16 (red with green stripe) goes to the positive side of the coil
Wire 262 (brown) goes to the starter relay

When we first wired it, we didn't put wire 262 on the one side of the resistor, but in looking at the wiring diagram, it looks like that is where it should go, since in the original, they were paired together.

Did we do this correctly?

Thanks again for all the help on this. I know my son is anxious to drive his truck again.....(I'm anxious to have him drive again, too, because I'm tired of loaning him one of our cars or being the taxi).

[Dragon]

The wire from the starter goes to the dizzy side of the resistor to bypass the resistance for cold starts. I just ran a temp one today because my crank time when cold got worse and sending 12V to the coil made my starts more normal.