Where do I begin?? My car was running well until it began to stall during a warm spell. This problem grew into an occasional miss that left the car barely driveable. The car is now dead!! I had the car tuned up 1000 miles ago with new points, plugs, distributor cap and rotor, wires, and fuel filter. In trying to fix this problem I have replaced the fuel pump, distributor cap and rotor(again), plugs and wires(again), alternator, battery, fuel filter(again) and the coil. I was lookng at the wiring harnesses and I noticed that the connectors at the firewall are a bit worn. One of the wires was coming out of the back of the connector! The clip broke off of another one as I removed it to check the contacts(very dirty and oxidized). I'm thinking of rewiring the car, but year one only has a harness for a '69 Dart/Valiant. Can I use this in my car???? I tried running the battery directly to the coil to see if that would help, but now the car won't even start. It turns over and occasionally the starter will catch and there will be a dip in power that can be seen on the dash and the dome light, but the car will absolutely NOT start. It's out in my driveway with the battery disconnected. I don't know what to do with it! Can anyone help??

jbrig@enter.net

Back to the basics, fuel, compression & spark at the right moment and it will run.

From your latest discription, could be a failed (broken) distributor gear. Pull the coil wire off the top of the distributor cap and hold it 1/8 inch away from a good ground (the cast iron head) while some cranks the engine. You should see a nice blue "spark, spark, spark . . ."
Have the distributor cap off while you do this spark test and see if the rotor turns smoothly.
If both tests are good, "bump" the engine around to TDC on the timing mark and see if the rotor still points to #1.
DD

The Doc is right, as usual. Check the basics, and if they are there, it will at least run. One thing I didn't see mentioned was if you had fresh fuel. I assume you've tried priming the engine through the carb...right? Have you looked into the carb to see if it's squirting fuel when you move the throttle?

I doubt your wire harness is causing your problem, and I'd save the money until you get it running. Eliminate the simple stuff first. You can always upgrade to a new harness later.



lancer_41@excite.com

I'd try checking 1)solinoid 2)voltage regulator 3)ngine's ground cable

todd.fenton@sympatico.ca