My 65 Barracuda is having an ignition problem. I put the MP electronic ignition and the later squareback alternator and solid state voltage regulator on it about 6 years ago. It is my wife's daily driver so I have to rely on her description of the problem. She drives about 28 miles one way to work. She has told me it has been cutting out and losing power occasionally on the freeway. And then it bangs in the back which I assume is the fuel igniting in the tail pipe when it starts firing again.

Friday night it died after about 22 freeway miles and wouldn't start. The CHP called to let me know and I went down and sure enough it started and ran about a minute and died. Had fuel and air but no fire. I pulled the coil wire and had her crank and got a spark when it first turned over and then nothing. I have a spare ECU and coil, which I couldn't find before I went down, so we went back home and found it and the voltmeter and went back. Then it started and ran fine. I went ahead and stuck the spare coil and ECU on and she drove it home with no problem. I put the old parts back on yesterday and we went shopping and it ran fine, except it did seem to run a little rough. Could the ECU cause this? Maybe the heat from a long drive kills it?

I checked voltages and resistances today and the only thing I found was that the voltage drops from about 12.5 at the battery to about 11.8 at the ECU. This drop seems to take place in the ignition switch. I had 12.5 at the ammeter connections and 11.8 everywhere I could find to check after the switch. Is a .7 volt drop in the ignition switch to much?

Another thing I wonder about is the ammeter. I think I remember reading that the later higher output charging system can kill the ammeter. Could the ammeter be starting to fail?

The 40 year old wiring is in surprisingly good shape on this car. Much better than the wiring on my daughter's 1988 Cherokee! Wires are still flexible and I could not find any loose or corroded connections. This has probably always been a California car and has never been driven on wet salty roads.

I just spent a lot of time and effort chasing a problem and it turned out to most likely be the distributor (I replaced the lean burn stuf with a Mopar kit with orange box and dist and the problem went away -- Since I had put **three** replacement ESCs in there, I am betting it was the dist). The pickup coil resistances measured within specs when cold, but the reluctor had two nodes that were 0.002" wider than the other four at the air gap on the run coil.

Seems like if something is wrong with a black box, it should stay broke! It isn't likely to come and go. Whereas the dist has both mechanical and electrical parts and is right there to get heat-soaked which changes stuf around.

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FullTime RVer in a 1991 Scamp 13' pulled by a 1982 D150 /6 BBD A833/OD 3.91-posi

Pete, I went down that road about 2 years ago. Similar symptoms and it turned out to be the pickup coil in the distributor. It was like yours. Resistance was fine when cold. It would run about 30 minutes and then the coil was totally open. Let it cool off and you could drive it again.

I missed the opportunity to diagnose it Friday. We are remodelling the house and I had trouble finding tools, couldn't find the spare parts and forgot the voltmeter. Oh well, probably get another chance soon!

Hey Pete

I also had this problem months ago. It turned out being the pickup coil on the dist. After a shor period of warmup it would stall and wouldn't start again till getting cold again. I replaced teh ecu, the coil, the ballast resistor, etc etc and after spending huge $$ I discovered that the li'l pickup was cra**ing out on me

I have seen these pick-ups on ebay for a few bucks all the time.. I also suspect that it they are interchangable with v8 mopars...

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Mike C
http://cuda.iclownz.com
67 - Barracuda Coupe - 225 - Automatic

Actually, I now find myself wishing I had saved the darn thing, heated it up and tested it to be sure -- but it was a reman from AutoZone with a life warranty, so I swapped it for another.

I kept all the old stuf and wired it so it will be easy to swap dists, make a few minor wire connections and put it back in service if something goes wrong out in the boondocks. I am now among those who carry spare ballast resistors <big grin>.

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FullTime RVer in a 1991 Scamp 13' pulled by a 1982 D150 /6 BBD A833/OD 3.91-posi

It looks like this time it was the orange ECU. I put the spare on and the car has run all week with no problems. We had several hot days(to hot for March) so we had a good heat test too. Without looking at my records I estimate the MP ignition lasted 60-70,000 miles. The original pickup coil went last May.