Sunday PM, going to do a short local trip to Lowes, got the 83 D150 10 feet out of the garage, motor stumbles and stalls, no start,,

I have had the choke stick before, pull the air intake,take a look, nope that is fine,
I have a timing light with a lengthy set of cords, hook that up,from the drives seat crank the motor, pull the trigger on the timing light , no flash,,

being a sequential type of guy, check voltage at the HEI relay, #30 power in, 12.6 V,, OK,, ignition on, #85 and 87, 12.6 V OK,

move to the HEI module,
Ground is good,
B and C terminal show no V ignition off, 12+ with ignition on
W and G terminal show no V ignition off, 1.3 or so ignition on

still no start, I wire in a spare HEI module, no flash on the timing light and no start.
wire in a temporary coil, no flash on the timing light and no start,

I had put together a set of 5 electronic distributors, all with new electronic modules, closely gapped reluctors,, each with 9 R or 15 R advance regulators and 239 or 208 vacuum cans, and each with different advance spring combos. Each distributor is color coded to keep track of them.

Intent is to run each and monitor performance and gas milage and see what develops.

I had the 'grey' distributor in for about 500 miles, the gery one is a 15R regulator, stock light spring and Crane yellow heavy spring, 239 vacuum can,new ingition module.

since the truck was not starting, I pulled the 'grey' distributor and installed the 'plain aluminum' distributor, 15R regulator, stock springs, 208 can, new ignition module, the motor fires and runs as soon as the key is turned,,

this is a lengthy post but the question is

are there resistance / voltage specifications for the module in the electronic distributor ?

it appears that I have a distributor module that failed early in life, so basically are there bench tests for the distributor ignition modules?

thanks[/u]

By "module in the distributor" do you mean the pickup coil? If so it should have several hundred ohms resistance and more importantly should not be open, nor shorted nor grounded.

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Joshua

Yes, per section 8 in the FSM a 1973-1980-ish Mopar EI distributor pickup coil should read about 750 when the pickup tooth is between the reluctor teeth and significantly less when both sets of teeth are pointing to each other (place your ohmmeter probes into the pigtail leads to test).

It is not uncommon for the pickup to fail if an original unit after 40 years, and in the last 10 years quality control is lacking and the new SMP units I got looked to be the same construction as the airtex units I bought for comparison...(which had about a 25% fail rate out if the package...)

FWIW, I am thinking I will start carrying a tested Pertronix-equipped points dist for over the road/track backup. I have already started carrying a stock elec dist, but this does not help if you burn out an ECU, MSD, etc... This seems to be a reliable and effective ignition system with the easiest wiring of anything out there. This would allow me to do a 2 wire swap to a system that would bypass module, stock pickup/dist, and all other wiring and take care of a shredded dist gear. I still have a Pertronix on Project V and is pulls hard over 6000 RPM. Someday I'll do a back to back with some "higher energy" ignition, but I suspect it will make little or no difference.

Heck, a tested points dist would work too if you want a no buck backup option...

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

That's been a time honored trick since the 70's..."just in case"....

LOL.

thanks guys,,

I will check out the one that appears to have failed this weekend,,

OR you could test the AC voltage output of the pickup coil with the distributor installed. I get 300-500 mV AC on my DVOM while cranking the engine with the starter.

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63 Valiant Wagon
225 - 4 bbl