Intermittent starting and dying problem solved

For months I’ve been batting an intermittent starting and dying problem in my stock ignition 1973 Dart. It’s been a real bummer. The car would work fine for months, suddenly it would die and not start up again. I’d tow it home, only to find it would fire, first crank. I checked all of the electrical connections over, and over, and over again. At this point, my connections are immaculate, or so I thought.

I started carrying my multimeter around with me hoping I could do a diagnosis on the road, but I would either leave the multimeter at home, or the car would die in a place I couldn’t safely do testing. Every time I towed it home, it would fire up first crank.

There was no pattern. Hot or cold engine, short or long drive, winter or summer months, sometimes within a week, sometimes after three months of problem free driving.

This morning I was tidying up my wiring while the car was warming up, and when working on the wires heading toward the distributor the car started to struggle. I wiggled each of those wires individually until I found that the positive coil connection was loose, and wiggling it made the car die.

Hallelujah the long nightmare is over!