Go Figure

[nj7000]

Well, it's about the nicest day we've had here in Minnesota in awhile, and you guessed it, I went to start the vette and it won't start. It turns over, I can smell gas, but nothing. I looked at the plugs and for some reason they weren't tightened completely, that is, they were actually loose! They also had a light amount of white buildup on the plug. I tightened all the plugs up and took a look in the distibutor but nothing. I drove it 3 days ago with no problems; except on my way home it seemed like it lost power for about 1 second and it only happened once. The whole car seemed like it was going to shutoff, but then it picked up again. What could be the deal here? The day is wasting away!

 

[craig32]

Basics: you need 3 things - gas to the carb, spark at the plugs, and accurate timing. It sounds like you have gas, if it isn't flooded. Check for spark - pull a plug, put it in the wire and crank it over - the plug should spark across the gap. Put a timing light on it and see if the timing mark is anywhere near the indicator. Could be jumped timing if it lost power and then continued.
Craig

 

[nj7000]

I took apart the distributor, blew it out, and disconnected the red wires that snap into the distributor, and it actually started! So I'm guessing that there's a problem with the hot wire going into the distributor. I took it out for a drive and it worked great until it was just like the car shut off. I had to put it in park and restart it. It fired up right away then, does this wire connection sound like the culprit?

 

[goertz]

it's probably some issue with the hot wire to the distributor, but what does your tach do before this happens? it could be a shorting tach wire, or a problem in the tach. this will ground the entire ignition system. this is something boat owners take great caution in. i had a friend that sank his boat twice, at high speeds, 70 mph+, the tach wire shorted out, and the engine immediately died. the boat came to a rapid stop, and it's wake splashed over the back, and glug, glug, glug, down she went. sat there with just the bow bobbing out of the water. he didn't know what happened. had it pulled out and rebuilt. took it out again, same thing. sunk twice. pulled it out, rebuilt the boat. on the third time he took it easy, no problems, then got on it, 70+ dies, about to sink for the third time, when someone on board ripped the tach wire off the distributor, and it fired right up, and outran the wake. it went up for sale the next day, he figured it was bad luck!

 

[nj7000]

Well I have the problem pinpointed a little better. Tonight our local car club had a cruise and it worked great on the way there. On the way back, when I kind of stepped on it, not too hard, the RPMs would hit 0, the engine would appear to shut off, and when I released the gas, they'd come back up. It would do this pretty consistantly. But when I was just cruising at a speed, it worked fine. What's really going on here??

 

[goertz]

unplug the tach wire from the distributor. it's right next to the power wire, then drive it and see if it continues. could also be bad ignition module. those are common, and cheap.