The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Being a bit difficult

My 58 decided not to start yesterday. The starter turns over, battery ok, spark in spark-plug, gas coming into carb and I even get a little "put-put" but she doesn't take. I've been driving my truck daily for many months and this is the first time she doesn't want to start. Is there anything else I can check? BCAA came and checked over everything and he couldn't find anything wrong. Yes, I check the gas and its ok. I'm thinking of pushing her down the road and popping the clutch but I don't think that's good for the engine.

Ballast resistor or the coil maybe?

I'm not sure what the Ballast resistor is but I'll fiddle with the coil. Thanks.

Blu, we've have had a lot of rain. Is your distributor wet? Any moisture across your battery top?
Try drying those areas or hit it with a blast with WD-40.

I took off the distributor and was very dry. Battery is dry too. I just pushed it down the street and she wouldn't fire up. I'm leaning towards something wrong with the coil stuff. Now I need to find a shop that I can't afford.

if you have spark at the plugs, I'd expect the gas isn't getting past the carb - if you don't have a good fuel filtre there could be a rust flake plugging something - try splashing some gas in the carb and see if it fires, if it does clean out the carb .... the ignition resistor should be mounted on the firewall, a small ceramic rectangle with one wire each end, can be jumpered with a wire to see if that clears the problem, but if you have spark, it should be ok

Bill

Remove the air cleaner and look down into the carb and open the throttle a couple of times looking for a squirt of gas from the accelerator pump. Does it have a filter built into the carb???? You said you have gas at the carb and if there is no gas coming out of the accelerator pump then probally the needle valve is blocked. A quick check would be as stated above squirt a little (remember LITTLE) gas into the carb and try to start it, remove the container of gas from the area, if it backfires thru the carb you might have a fire. Be careful and Good Luck.

It is possible that if your coil is getting weak, you can see a spark in free air but it may not be strong enough to fire a plug under compression.

check for broken wires to the coil and distributor and possibly the keyswitch.

but, before you do that, check your battery connections and ground.

Thank you all for your help! :-)
I went for a walk in frustration and to run some errands. When I got back I turned the key and turned on the radio to see if it was the ignition switch. Yep - all good there. I tried it again and she almost starts - get the chug-chug of a near start. We've looked at the carb a few times but I suspect the clogged needle might be right. We do smell gas in the carb. Funny how she runs for months & months and one day she just says, "NO!". I'm going to take off the coil and clean the connections to make sure that connection is clean and the coil is only a few months old. I bet it's something small or minor. Thanks again!

I agree concerning the coil or coil wire. I recently had a similar issue with my old Ferguson tractor and after days of troubleshooting I finally found the coil wire had burned out internally causing a disconnect.

Recheck your point gap.

How did you tell the coil wire was burned. I took it off and it looked ok at both ends and the line looks good. How do you test the coil to see if it works?

Sounds like it might be flooded.
Pull a couple of plugs and see if they are wet with gas. If so pull them all and blow the gas out of the cylinders. Stick in a new set and it should go.
Richard

Or you could clean the points and then check the gap. 400 wet & dry sandpaper, followed by someone's business card to polish them.

My daughter's '54 was driving along fine and just quit. I drove about 60 miles to retrieve her and found a grain of sand in the main jet, took it out and it ran fine again. You might try looking at the main jet, just one single grain of sand was enough to plug it up so not enough fuel would pass to even fire up.

I think I've figured it out. While cleaning up the coil, the green wire broke. I bet it was hanging from a thread and finally gave up. Now I just need to find another wire attachment thingy.

Oh - false alarm. I hooked it all up and same thing. Turns over and sorta attempts to start. I know the vaccuum advance isn't working - could that be the problem?

yes - timing is off

Bill

Except that the timing has been off for a long time, hasn't it, Mike? Have you cleaned and gapped your points yet? It might be enough to just give the contact surfaces a vigorous rubbing with one of those rough paper business cards. If that makes a difference, then you'll know. It worked for Epic #2, once.

It's flooded. Hold the gas pedal to the floor until it starts,
Scott

I would go with hotshoe36's advice & clean & set the points as a start, then the coil HT lead (the one in the centre of the distributor cap) will throw a blue spark at least 1/2" if taken out of the dist. cap & held out to the engine block, with the key on & the motor cranking, assuming the coil is OK. If the spark is weak doing this, then as suggested, the coil could be failing.

After that you will have eliminated spark. Timing would still need to be checked but it would need to be a long way out to not run at all.

I'd still put a little gas in the carb and see if that makes it fire. I have had a couple clogged fuel filters and when that happens it suddenly goes from workked fine to not at all. This sounds like that, out of gas.

I really appreciate all the help! I'm going to check the gas line today to start as my neighbour said it wasn't a strong enough gas smell in the carb after attempt. Neither neighbour could see gas in the carb with the flashlight on attempt. It may be clogged. If that fails to be the issue, I'll go through all of your suggestions, one-by-one.

Ok, I've got the carb off, the gas filter off (I wouldn't have dared do this a few years ago!). How do you make sure the gas is getting to the carb? I don't have an air compressor but I do have a can of air (computer). Should I pickup some carb cleaner to clean it out? I don't have anyone else to turn the engine to see if gas is being pumped right now. Thanks!

I cleaned up the carb, the lower flap when moved squirted gas, the rest looked clean and used the canned air to blow it out a bit. Put it all back and same thing. I took off the distributor - looked clean. Not sure how to do points but went about cleaning each of the points. Tried it again - same thing - I get the chug-chug of a near start. My truck wants to start. I guess the next thing to do is test the coil spark but I need someone else and figure out how to do the points. The truck has been without vaccuum advance for a few months...and to think of it, I drove it from California to BC without the advance working.

My truck was all lined up to move play sets and do a landscape install on Thursday. I really do rely on this truck.

Mike

Mike
I does sound like a weak coil. I would just buy a new one and see if that is the problem. Sometimes a fellow has to just keep replacing parts to find out the problem.

ok. It's a new coil less than a year old. I'm surprised it would go so quick. I'll do that test when my neighbour is available but hopefully that is the issue. thanks.

Mike, what is the condition of your choke plate?

When the choke is defective or not adjusted properly, it can make an engine hard to start.

I'm not exactly sure what the choke plate is but everything on the carb looked good including what the choke moves. It's odd how it worked just fine all day Wednesday and then Thursday - nothing. What really makes me wonder is that we pushed the truck down the street and tried starting in 2nd - nothing. I'm leaning towards electrical now that I've looked at the gas closer and it seems fine. The carb was rebuilt a year ago to comply with aircare passing which messed it up but its still run. There's some wire somewhere or maybe this new coil is defective. Thanks for everyones comments.

Mike, I wish I was close by to help you. I am pretty sure it is something simple to fix.

BTW..I am surprized the BCCA fellow didn't assist you more. [ did he attempt to jump start your truck at all?]...call them again, you may get another fellow who is a better mechanical type.

When you get a chance read this What is a choke and what does it do

Can you describe how you normally start your truck for us.

Did you try to start it like how 48bigtrucks suggested?.. if not, try it!

Man.. this sucks.. I feel your pain partner!

Edit..
Did you try what red58 said...a little bit of gas down the carb?

Mike,

Pull a spark plug and ground it while having someone crank it over. If you can see a spark, you can rule out electrical. I'd also say if you can see it, your coil is fine. The ports and passages in your carb are very small, you can't tell if the carb is good or not by looking at it.

It seems to me that its unlikely the carb would go bad suddenly from one day to the next. More likly a broken wire somewhere.

The fuel pump also comes to mind. One time I removed the output off the fuel pump and had my wife crank the motor over. I had the distributer disconnected too. The spaying fuel was ignited by a spark. Fortunealty I had a fire extinguisher nearby, but it was a few very exiting seconds.

Keep us in the loop. I curious how thsi turns out.

Mike,

Smell you tailpipe after cranking it, if its flooded or getting gas you should be able to smell it there.

Go Wings!

I would check your ballast resistor, they will sure trip you up. Also if you have an old coil just hanging around hook it up and see what happens. One time on my Indian, I put on a new coil and it ran like junk. Could not figure it out, put on the old coil and once again it ran like a top. Good luck, its minor just hang in there you will get it.

It could be bad bushings in your distributor, my 48 Willys would run great then all of a sudden just die (usually in the worst places) and not offer to start again. With you distributor cap off grasp the rotor and try to wiggle the shaft back and forth. If the bushings are worn you can actually see the points move. Bushings are hard to find now a days it seems, but I found them at Tractor Supply Co. other farm stores may have them. It's really not too difficult to rebuild a distributor if you have too. I hope you find out what is causing it soon, hope this may help.

id put new plugs in dump some gas dryer in the tank and set the points you may have some water build up in your fule and it will coat the plugs

I am not sure how your wiring is set up, but I think you should have a "direct circuit" to the coil which by-passes the ballast resistor on starting, and then switching to the "run circuit" which uses the ballast resistor. Maybe you need to "hot wire" your truck? Check your ignition wires. Somebody will correct me if I am wrong.

old, west here mate just spotted this one can you run a wire from the positive terminal on your battery to the pos(+) term on your coil please mate and turn it over ,if it starts you need to replace the ballast resistor(white ceramic block with 2 terminals on it usually on the fire wall or coil) if not i would suggest that you have points/condensor trouble some gm/chev trucks had this resistor in the harness,the guys should know as i am uncertain as to which truck you have and some trucks didn't have them,either way this will cover the electrics please don't walk away and leave the jump wire connected as it will flatten your battery.one more thing take the cap off and turn it over and check the rotor is turning if not that is your fault the distributor drive gear is split in two where the roll pin goes through or the cam chain/gear is u/s not common but can happen,we have a local G.M.H.(General Motors Holden)engine down here that uses of the shelf bits from G.M.that had a steel crank gear and a fibre cam gear (to quiten them down) that would drive fine and if the timing was out at all much it would give a cough when shut down and strip the fibre gear the next time you go to start it it wont go just give a cough as you described,same thing with the distributor drive gear.Hope this helps,also hope it is just electrics,mate i'm off to bed(2.10am) here but please don't hesitate to get in touch if you think i can help.I don't know these trucks to well being an Aussie but it is all common stuff for a truck built in the last 70 years Good Luck and don't let it get you down it was built by hand it can be fixed by hand. p.s just in case it helps i am an Auto Electrician

Also check to distributor cap for carbon tracking, check to make sure that the centre carbon pin has not disintigrated check to see if spark into dist. if yes, check at spark plug if yes look at carb.
Dave.

Mike and I had a run at the auld girl today, and basically came up blank. Here's what we did: Confirmed spark at the plugs, confirmed fuel flow. Swapped out all the plugs - the old ones were heavily carboned up, and wet - and buggered with the timing a bit. The vacuum advance works, sort of. Still no go. No timing light, but we went 'round a bit looking for a spot. The barest little puff of fire in there. No idea what to do next, except that Mike is going to check (and top off) the battery's levels and charge it up, because it is tired from all this cranking, and no running.