QuestionQUESTION: Good evening,
Decided to tune up the 66 TBird. Was running OK but I bought the car 2 yrs ago and just wanted to be sure it was up to date. Replaced coil, points, rotor, cap, plugs and wires, starter solenoid, ignition switch. fuel pump, battery, and a new starter. The old starter was pulling 400 plus amps. It also turned rather slow. BUT it won't start. Have rechecked everything and it is to factory specs. New starter spins it quite nicely but no start. Have verified the spark from the coil to distributor cap. Verified spark from the plug wires by grounding an old plug to the head and observing it spark. Even put a stub in the spark plug wire and held it by the head and a nice strong spark. Tried running a wire from the bat plus terminal directly to the coil plus stud and still no start. There is fuel to the carb tested by removing fuel line from carb and shooting fuel into a cup. Pumping the throttle introduced fuel thru the accelerator pump into the jets. Even tried putting some fuel directly into the carb and not even a burp. Tried setting it to a known flooded condition still no start. When installing the new fuel pump timing chain was visible and seemed properly oriented. All I can think of is a carb problem or the possibility the cam might have slipped a cog on the timing chain. But never noticed any excessive noise in the past. Maybe the carb? HELP!
ANSWER: Run a compression test on the engine. If the timing chain has jumped a tooth or two the compression will be low. Let me know the results and we will go from there.
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QUESTION: Good morning,
Found part of the problem. Whoever replaced/removed the distributor installed without aligning it to the #1 position. So #1 became #8, etc. Now it will idle smoothly BUT when RPMs increased much above 1000-1200 it starts to misfire. Disconnected the vac advance and it seems to accelerate smoothly. I just ordered new dist from NAPA and hopefully this will take care of it.
I ran a compression check 1- 160/ 2 -170/3-173/4-170/5-155/6-165/7-145/8-145. I also tried moving the crank shaft to watch the movement of the rotor. Rotated crank clockwise til movement then cc to check movement and the slack is 3-4 degrees. So I don't think the timing chain has slipped.( Operative word-THINK)
I'll install the dist when it gets here and let you know the results. Anything else I might look for?
Thanks again.
Bill Abramczyk
AnswerWith those compression numbers the timing chain is not jumped. Also 3 to 4 degrees of crank movement before the rotor moves is not a concern. 6 to 10 degrees is trouble. The test that you did with the vacuum advance indicates a worn breaker plate in the distributor so I think that you are on the right track. Keep me posted.
