Engine won't start

[ChrisH]

Please Help! I brought my Vette back to our house from storage a few months ago. Drove it home put it in garage and even had to move it around once. Every time it started and ran great, then about a month ago I tried to start it and it just cranks and cranks. Does not even start to fire. Here is what I know so far( by the way my car is a '68 with a '89 350 it has standard HEI distributor ). I know the cap, rotor, coil, modual are all good, internal distributor wires check good, and with the key in the on postition(but not start) I have 12volts coming from the ingnition. I seem to be getting fuel, I even poured a little in the carb on one attempt. I pulled #3 spark plug (because it was easy to get to), re-attachted it to its wire and held it close to bare metal on frame and had my wife crank the engine over and no spark at all. What am I doing wrong or can someone tell me what to do next as I am at the end of my rope! And the weather here is really nice right now and the car sitting here idle is killing me!

Thanks
Chris

 

[silver 80]

Do you have an oil pressure switch? No spark Are you sure that all of the componets of dist. are good. This is just a basic engine nothing fancy?
If your not getting spark I would think that it has to do something with Distributor.
Does the power wire to the dist have a good connection?

 

[brusso]

Not to be a jerk, no kill switch right?

 

[Robin7TFour]

CHRIS, if you have 12v to the distributor,pull the cap off and remove the rotor.look on the underside. if you see any gray spot(s) then its the rotor. remove the coil cap and look for the same gray spots on the sides of the coil.also an indication of bad component.
should you get past there, then the only two others are the pick-up or module.
note, if it is a bad pick-up you will have to remove the dist.

hope this helps

ROBIN

 

[ChrisH]

I don't think I have an oil pressure switch the engine is nothing fancy. The car did have a kill switch but I took it out thinking that could be the problem. I inspected the cap and rotor and found no visible spots, then I checked the coil in another car I have here and it started the other car, thinking it had to be the module I installed a new one and still nothing. I told a friend of my problems and he gave me a complete working HEI distributor out of a street rod of his. I swapped that in and still nothing. Here is something I don't know if this is supposed to happen or what but when the key is turned and the engine is cranking the voltage from the ignition drops to 7-8 volts.

Chris

 

[Jack]

Chris:
Longshot ... & I hope this ain't it. Is it possible the distributor is not turning? Have you verified that the rotor spins when you crank motor over? If it ain't spinning then the cam may not be turning ... timing chain may've broken ...bolts fell out of cam gear ... all this sort of a dufas longshot I know but stranger things have happened?

I understand you "seem to be getting fuel" which would indicate that the front of camshaft is bumping the mechanical fuel pump ... maybe cam has broke between fp lobe & dist gear ... wierd stuff does happen. Are you sure you're getting fuel pressure?

Does it build oil pressure as you're cranking it over? ... it should build increasing pressure ... if it does not build op then the oil pump is probably not turning which indicates the distributor is not turning either. If it does increasingly build op when it is cranking then the distributor is almost certainly spinning also.
JACK:gap

 

[vette-dude]

When you changed dist did you use the old cap and rotor? I suspect you have a bad cap or rotor. I know it should backfire or something but if the coil in the cap has lost its ground you will get no fire to the plugs. If you did use a new cap and rotor then I would suspect the main wire going into the cap or the wiring in the cap itself. Did you check and see that when your key is in the start position that you have voltage to the coil? If not it could be the ignition switch itself has gone south. Just some other possibilities. I also concur with Jack that the worse case is that the dist is not turning leading to other more pronounce problems. Good Luck and keep us informed.

Randy

 

[ChrisH]

The rotor is turning when the engine cranks. When I changed distributors I changed complete unit(cap, rotor, everything). Also when the engine is cranking I am reading voltage at the coil only it is down from 12V to 7-8Volts. Maybe this replacement distributor has bad components , which I find hard to believe. I dropped my complete old distributor off with a trusted mechanic today for him to check out. I'll keep you posted and thanks for the help!

Chris

 

[ChrisH]

I don't know if any of your are still looking at this but I wanted to put out here that the car is running now. Now is the time I have to put out here how dumb I am. I think the original problem was the module. After I replaced the module when I put it all back together I had the wire coming from the ignition stuck in on the Tach terminal(I would have swore thats were I took it from). I was not even reading the top of the coil cap but going from memory which is very faulty. Thanks for all your help! I feel really stupid now but I'll keep trying to learn. Thanks again people!

Chris

 

[vette-dude]

Been there, done that. Glad you got it running.

Randy

 

[nj7000]

I also have a similar problem. Usually after the car has been sitting in storage for the winter it doesn't want to start. This also happened one other time when the car was being driven frequently. At that point I replaced the coil and also the module inside the dist. After that it still didn't work, but after blowing out the dist. with air it started to work. Any ideas??