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I've been experiencing a hard start/no start problem for some time now.
I've tried an allison/crane xr700 and found performance suspicious and I really don't trust them. I've had hard starting with two different brains and wanted to try something else.
I picked up a very inexpensive Hot-Spark (new and unused) for $25.00 including shipping. The seller did not have a proper dizzy for it (but I do).
I've set my static timing with the "Kwas Method" I've done it several times now and I can't get the car to fire up.
This reminds me of the trouble I had back in December/January when I was not setting the timing to the compression stroke. I can assure you that I'm not making that mistake - but if I were, shouldn't reversing the firing order on the wires tell me for sure?
Is there anything odd about these hotspark units? People always say that they have to invert the crane's optical sensor to get it to work, the hotspark does not allow this, but I could remove and reverse the breaker plate if that would make a difference...
Anyway, I've set the static timing and confirmed a *strong* visible spark at the #1 plug with #1 at TDC and the timing marks at 15 BTDC, it should work, right? The only reason it might not is if I was not setting #1 TDC to the compression stroke. Is there any other reason?
Any insight into the HS unit might help.
Thanks as always.
Follow-up question:
For those of you with a Hotspark or a Pertronix, what quadrant of the dizzy is the sensor sitting? Assuming that you are leaning over the DS fender looking down at the dizzy?
I have read and followed http://www.hot-spark.com/Installing-Hot-Spark-II.htm
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I don't think the problem is the hotspark. I just experiences the same problem with the crane. No hot start.
I pulled the caps from the carbs and confirmed fuel present. I also swapped the caps with original style valves and floats with another set with ball-bearing grosse jets and solid plastic floats.
I then re-set the static timing, confirming compression stroke and #1 spark at 15 btdc.
I appear to be getting spark at all four plugs. I just don't get it.
Got spark, fuel, compression, and timing what else is there? What else could be going bad when the engine is hot?
The car started and ran perfectly with crane last night and this morning, but now will not start.
Maybe the plugs are fouled? If that were the case, would I be seeing the clean spark at the #1 plug when I set my static timing.
There is something significant I'm missing - maybe the root cause of my many problem.
I'd stumped.
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If you have a severe vacuum leak in your intake manifold or in a connection to it the car will not run (or start), as I discovered when I had a hose come off as I was driving down the road.
Given your description of melted wires on the car and the cars history of (apparent) electrical gremlins, I would be highly suspicious of the integrity of of ALL the wiring...
Good luck
Bill
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Would you think I should replace the whole wiring harness?
I'm wondering if I could still be looking at an ignition switch issue. I was suspecting it until the last round of symptoms led to a bad coil.
I still feel an unease about that coil failing in amongst my other problems. Seems suspicious...
A giant vacuum leak fits part of the symptoms, but it would not appear intermittently. Neither would carb tune. Whatever this is slows the first start and then completely prevents starting after the engine totally warms up.
Whatever it is appears independent of the ignition system and distributor I am using.
as near as I can tell, the damaged part of the wiring is limited to headlight circuit. As the only un-fused circuit, those would be the only wires that could burn up. That system is completely independent from the ignition system, plus I've already tested the resistance values on the primary ignition wires.
I've got new sparks arriving tomorrow, but the symptoms so far do not really point to fouled sparks.
The only thing I can think of trying now would be to reinstall the original coil and ignition switch. Then puzzle out how to use that IPD diode kit to wire up the Hotspark (I'm not breaking the armored coil). The Hotspark is an expired-patent clone of the pertronix system, and the IPD diode kit is for the pertronix system so I should have all the parts here.
I really hate the process of getting that ignition tumbler out. I'd rather avoid it, but I don't know what else to try...
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You could try bypassing the ignition switch entirely by connecting the + of the coil directly to the battery - TEMPORARILY - long enough to test. If you leave the coil connected to the battery WITHOUT the ENGINE RUNNING for any length of time you will BURN OUT THE COIL and possibly also burn out the Hot Spark unit as well. ...I seem to recall that my Pertronix kit warning against that...
If you leave the ignition switch on too long without the engine running you will also burn out the coil...
You should inspect your wiring very, very carefully; a hot wire may also melt the insulation of an adjacent, unrelated wire.
Bill
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What it is, ain't exactly clear...
Bear in mind, except for hopping into the driver's seat, or leaning in through the window, I've only been working under the hood. I've touched nothing at all under the dash.
Getting frustrated with the hotspark, the flaky allison and crane, I decided to screw it all and go back to the points dizzy.
Guess what? car won't start with the points dizzy either. no spark at all in the wires... then no spark at all in from the coil (checked the resistance is fine even when hot), and my headlights are stuck on... don't know for how long.
I flipped my battery disconnect, closed it up and came back inside.
I've no G-D idea what is going on here, but there is something screwy in my entire electrical system. I get spark, then I don't get spark. I've tried two sets of spark plus wires, multiple distributor caps, different sparks.
I'd think maybe a ground problem, but the car has two ground points and both are solid and unbroken.
I'm not clear-headed enough to trace this right now. I'm way too fried. I think the Hotspark is fine. There is something else wrong. Sadly, I can't get a new good cap and rotor set until Monday.
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The headlights were stuck on because of a fault in one of the old headlight-dipper switch wires. It appears coincidental to my ignition trouble. I replaced the offending length of wire and the headlights operate normally now.
It's worth mentioning that the first owner had some sort of CB setup that went horribly wrong. Most of the wiring to and from the floor dipper were roasted and shoddily bypassed. I don't know what he did, but he burned a good chunk of that subsystem's wiring. I've now replaced almost all of the lighting circuit.
One problem down.
I reinstalled the crane dizzy and without changing wires, cap, or rotor and the car immediately fired up.
Something is bad on the points dizzy. It was carefully gapped to .016 after I removed and stowed it in the trunk. Maybe the condenser is bad or the "new" bosch points had a fit. I dunno, I'm going to put the original points back in tomorrow.
So, I'm still left with hard hot-restart with both xr700 brains, a non-working points setup, and a solid-state hotspark I can't seem to get correctly timed.
It really does not help that the hotspark and points setups have the same unexplained lack of spark during ignition.
The fight continues tomorrow.
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RepairmanJack,
So, I'm still left with hard hot-restart with both xr700 brains, a non-working points setup, and a solid-state hotspark I can't seem to get correctly timed.
It really does not help that the hotspark and points setups have the same unexplained lack of spark during ignition.
I think the second statement should read "during start" rather than "during ignition". How are you determining a no spark condition during starting? I thought from a previous post you had "good" spark on #1 from the HotSpark system but the car still would not start.
Going back to the symptoms you originally reported, the car starts and runs OK when cold? It begins to run badly after it reaches operating temperature and is difficult to restart. Is that correct?
That describes exactly a flooding problem due to float maladjustment or needle not seating. Are you sure your problem is ignition?
The odds of having two bad electronic ignitions, a bad distributor with points, and a defective HotSpark trigger are pretty high.
On the XR700, if the LED flashes, the pickup, pulse shaper, and coil driver are all working. That LED only lights if the box fires. You just repaired the Allison. Do you suspect it has failed again?
--
Mr. Shannon DeWolfe -- I've taken to using mister because my name misleads folks on the WWW. I am a 52 year old fat man.
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Flooding from the carbs is a possibility. I had not thought of that.
I did check the float needles and adjust the floats themselves per spec the last time I was messing with them. I've not checked them lately and I'll look into that.
I agree that this is a lot of failed components all at once and it makes no sense. So when my headlights came on for no reason, I began to suspect a fault in the electrical system. But, I fixed that so I think it is something else - float adjustement is worth checking again.
SO...
The spark issue has been very weird. For example, the hotspark gives me a nice strong pop of a spark when I'm setting the static timing. However, when trying to start it, I hooked up an inductive timing light and found no spark at all or an intermittent spark. With the Hotspark, I could see a nice strong flash from the coil wire, and at first I saw a nice strong spark from the #1 wire, but later, it got very intermittent.
Suspecting the cheapo inductive timing light, I hooked up my direct in-line light and found the same problem. Strong spark when setting timing, but no spark when cranking. Confusing.
So, I suspect my cap and rotor or wires, swapping those out had made little or no difference. This makes me suspect all my caps and rotors and both sets of plug wires.
But to really fry me, the same old cap, rotor, and wires that would not work with the Points Dizzy or the Hotspark fired up immediately with the crane dizzy.
About the crane units. These are both older Allison/Crane XR700s w/o the LED
I've got the original Allison XR700 that died back in January and I was able to re-solder it. I did not fully trust it since the repair was pretty minor (and I believe you warned that it would fail again). Fearful of this, I found a replacement Crane XR700 and have been running with it. But, since I've been using the replacement crane brain, I've had hard starting and would experience "bucking" on the road. Last weekend, swapping the repaired Allison XR700 brain back in curred the hard-start temporarily, but it re-appeared yesterday morning.
So it was with some happiness that I found my new Hotspark setup in the mail and I spent the afternoon getting that setup, installed and non-functioning.
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Howdy Repairman,
If you have good spark at #1, the trigger mechanism is working as it should and there is a complete path from the coil to the plugs. Spark is no longer a problem, move along to the next thing you need, correct timing.
It is a relatively simple matter to find TDC on #1 compression stroke. Bump the starter around while you hold your thumb over the #1 spark plug hole. When the compression blows your thumb off the hole, stop. Now rotate the engine by hand to TDC. You can see the top of the piston through the plug hole as it approaches TDC. Use the marks on the crank pulley to set zero on the pointer. The distributor rotor should now point directly at #1 tower. If it doesn't, make it so.
Put everything together and spin the starter as you rotate the distributor toward advanced. It should fire and run somewhere around 5 degrees BTDC.
BTW, have you checked compression since you installed this head?
--
Mr. Shannon DeWolfe -- I've taken to using mister because my name misleads folks on the WWW. I am a 52 year old fat man.
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Yeah, I did check my compression a bit lower than the first test, but still in the 160s. This is the motor's original cylinder head, I did not swap that "other" one I bought...yet.
This hotspark is making me nuts. The dizzy has a full 360 degrees of rotation and I seem to be able to get a spark in at least two places. That makes no sense, I must be missing something...
I usually find #1 TC, but rotating the engine (in normal direction) until I see the intake valve open and close... one more spin up to TDC, timing mark at 15 btdc, and the rotor pointing to #1 spark. I usually double-check by removing the #1 spark plug.
But, I did just try that thumb trick and dang! that's failsafe correct. I like it.
I reset the timing mark to 0 TDC I did get it running briefly but very badly. It fired up when I released the key (usually indicates something is "OFF." It ran rough, and died when I tried to adjust the timing.
What is weird is that the timing light suddenly stopped picking up the pulse from my spark plug wires... but I still get a spark when I try to set the static timing.
It's nutty. this whole operation should be relatively straightforward yet it is posing a real challenge.
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