So I was doing a little cleaning of my engine bay and removed my ignition choil so I could clean it up and repaint it. Like an idiot I just unhooked the wires thinking "oh it's okay, I know my car... I'll be able to put them on right." Now my car won't start... it will crank and I can hear the fuel pump clicking, but no spark. So could someone remind me, do the two black wires with the white stripe go on the positive or negative terminal of the coil? Right now I have them on the negative... (because usually black = negative) I'm a little scared to just move them to the other side because if it turns out to be a different problem and they are wired correctly right now, I don't want to just start flipping wires around and start shoving volts in directions they are not supposed to go...

Yellow is negative. Black w/white is positive. You can tell by checking for power. +12v goes to positive.

 

GD

Yellow is negative. Black w/white is positive. You can tell by checking for power. +12v goes to positive.

GD

Thanks gd.... you da man

It's still not firing. Any guesses what it could be? Could it be my distributor?

Double check all your spark plug wires?

So I was doing a little cleaning of my engine bay and removed my ignition choil so I could clean it up and repaint it. Like an idiot I just unhooked the wires thinking "oh it's okay, I know my car... I'll be able to put them on right." Now my car won't start... it will crank and I can hear the fuel pump clicking, but no spark. So could someone remind me, do the two black wires with the white stripe go on the positive or negative terminal of the coil? Right now I have them on the negative... (because usually black = negative) I'm a little scared to just move them to the other side because if it turns out to be a different problem and they are wired correctly right now, I don't want to just start flipping wires around and start shoving volts in directions they are not supposed to go...

 

This is why I take a picture and mark the wires before I remove them. Did you do anything with the distrutor and rotor? Just for giggles, take a peek to see if the screw is still on the rotor. Tug on the rotor to see if it comes out. Just because you may not have touched it doesn't rule out it may have come off by itself at the same time you were fiddling elsewhere.

Edited July 31, 20178 yr by MR_Loyale

This is why I take a picture and mark the wires before I remove them. Did you do anything with the distrutor and rotor? Just for giggles, take a peek to see if the screw is still on the rotor. Tug on the rotor to see if it comes out. Just because you may not have touched it doesn't rule out it may have come off by itself at the same time you were fiddling elsewhere.

Yup and I should know better and that's why I'm really kincking myself for not doing that. I'll check the rotor when I get home from work... normally my tach jumps around a little bit when it is trying to start but when I crank the engine right now it th tach needle just sits there. So that makes me think that the electrons are getting stuck somewhere upstream... or I fried my dusty somehow... I'll update when I get home

So I've got 12 V going to the black wire with the white stripe with the ignition on... but no volts at the fuse for the ignition coil. Thoughts? Is my ignition coil to blame? I suppose I really need to get a diagram of the ignition circuit to understand where those crafty atoms are going.

 

I'm also getting 1.4 ohms of resistance from the coil ... I'm not sure if that is within spec or not. I've also got that other blac wire (the one that connects to a capacitor looking device and then grounds out on a bolt near the tire support rod bracket) hooked up to the positive sid of the coil.... should that be on the negative side with the yellow wire? I checked my distributor, and the rotor is tight and everything seems OK...

You should have a black/white with +12v going to the coil positive, and a yellow tach wire on the coil negative in addition to the wires from the distributor. When you crank the engine a test light on the negative side of the coil (to ground) should flash. The flashing is the signal from the distributor that fires the coil.

 

1.4 Ohms on the primary (positive to negative) is normal. Secondary (positive or negative to plug tower) should be about 8,000 to 12,000 Ohms.

 

If you jump 12v to the positive side of the coil and then tap the negative with a ground jumper - every time you remove the ground from the terminal the coil should create a spark.

 

GD

Edited August 1, 20178 yr by GeneralDisorder

Okay thanks for the helpful info gd.... I just had wisdom teeth pulled so I won't be able to get to it for at least a few days but I will let you know when I do. Also just so I understand, when you say test light you mean just a circuit tester light that I attach to ground and lights up when it gets power correct?

Edited August 1, 20178 yr by Sapper 157

Yes. It should see a 12v from the coil negative until the distributor triggers - when this happens the coil negative get a path to ground through the ignition module and will take that path rather than your test light. Causing it to flash.

 

GD

Okay I haven't gone out and tested it yet, but I just wanted to ask a theoretical question since I am just sitting here writhing in pain and had the time...

 

While I was cleaning my engine bay, I tried to seal all The electronics with plastic bags, such as the alternator and the distributor. To seal the distributor, I put a plastic bag over the top of the rotor, and then put the cap back on and clipped it into place to make a sort of waterproof seal. Then I used Engine degreaser on all the greasy parts of the engine, trying to keep it away from the electrical components I had covered. Then I washed it down with some low-pressure garden hose water, again trying to avoid all electric devices. My question is, If I had somehow gotten water into the distributor, could that cause this issue? Thanks all for your patience.

Water in the disty is a common problem when wheeling. Anything is possible. Use WD40 to displace the water. It's non conductive so you can spray all the electrical components with it.

 

GD

I have had water in my distributor several times after a hard cleaning. Also if a car sits a season in seattle weather the moisture alone can cause issues. Wipe dry the rotor and insides of the cap. You might even take a bit of emery cloth and scuff both the conductors on the rotor and inside the cap.

Water in the disty is a common problem when wheeling. Anything is possible. Use WD40 to displace the water. It's non conductive so you can spray all the electrical components with it.

GD

  

I have had water in my distributor several times after a hard cleaning. Also if a car sits a season in seattle weather the moisture alone can cause issues. Wipe dry the rotor and insides of the cap. You might even take a bit of emery cloth and scuff both the conductors on the rotor and inside the cap.

Thanks for the help guys. I'll give those things a try after I heal up a bit from my stupid teeth

OK so I went in and did the test light like you said GD. I got a solid light on the both the negative and the positive... no flashing. I'm guessing this means that the wires are not finding the ground in the distributor, right? Which either means my ignition module is bad, or something else in my distributor might be haywire… Am I way off or is that what I'm looking at here?

OK never mind I got it. I am a complete moron. I trace the wires that lead from the distributor… And found that The wires I was attaching to the ignition coil were only three of the required wires that need to be on there. So the wires that go to the distributor weren't even attached. It's official, I'm a dork. Sorry to waste your guy's time.

Test for continuity through the 2 distributor wires.

 

Again, there should be 2 wires on each coil terminal.  

 

body harness B/W to +

 

body harness Y to - (tach wire, will actually run without this)

 

Disty harness wire, can't recall colors, but basically they just make a loop from + to - through the disty.  So one wire to each side of coil.

does it run now?

Guessing that a year and a half later it's probably been dealt with one way or another. 

GD

16 hours ago, GeneralDisorder said:

Guessing that a year and a half later it's probably been dealt with one way or another. 

GD

I think I still have the record for hopping on a thread 15 years later lol