Distributor misfiring

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Dartalltheway

Dartalltheway

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My 225 /6 was working fine then all of a sudden it started misfiring. I'm thinking it's the distributor, but I have no solid evidence yet. Just wondering if other people have had this problem and how they fixed it. Any help greatly appreciated.
 
WHAT year/ model? breaker points or electronic?

Might be as posted above, as well as worn distributor, bad points or condenser, or if electronic, incorrect gap on the reluctor or damage due to mechanical strike, debri, rust, etc.

If electronic (Mopar or otherwise) might be dirt/ moisture in the heat sink for the switching transistor.

WHAT makes you thing it is ignition as opposed to valves or fuel?

WHAT SORT if miss? Is it "rythmic" as on one cylinder? Erratic? Pop through the carb

NOT ENOUGH INFORMATION!!!:eek:ops:
 
It some times seem moisture get's under the cap and corrodes the 6 pickups in the cap, remove the cap and look and see if you can scrape white build up off of them and all post before me need to be checked and answered for more help.
I had a coil go bad and it missed as soon as it warmed up.
 
It's an electronic distributor, 1974 Dodge Dart Swinger, It's an erratic miss and it pops. The valves seem fine and it's getting fuel to the carb. I gave it a tune up not a month ago.
 
you may have fouled a plug. i would pull them all out and check them over. hopefully it didnt jump time
 
Dartalltheway said:
, It's an erratic miss and it pops. The valves seem fine and it's getting fuel to the carb. I gave it a tune up not a month ago.
Click to expand...

An open plug wire or cracked plug can cause that, I assume it's popping out the carb? Or maybe the exhaust?

When does this occur? High RPM? High RPM under heavy load? ANY RPM, andy RPM under load?

Don't fixate on the distributor. Could be a lot of things.

Some easy things to do. Measure supply voltage to the ballast resistor from the IGN switch, key on, engine off

Pull the plug boots up from the dist. and figure a way to short them. You can either use insulated tongs/ pliers to lift them out, then pop a grounded probe (such as a 12V test light) into the dist. tower one cylinder at a time. Or, stick small brads down beside the wires into the tower terminals, then short them one at a time with a probe. At idle, you are looking for the same drop in RPM on each cylinder

I'd pull the plugs and look carfully, do they look like they are firing properly? Any cracks in the insulator?

Take your multimeter and measure the resistance of the plug wires. "Shake" them to look for intermittent connections, and don't forget the coil wire

Get a "feel" for the strength of the spark. Pull the coil wire out of the dist. with insulated pliers and try to get it out just enough to NOT kill the engine, Take a look at what the spark looks like

Pull the cap, look for cracks, damage in the cap and rotor

Look carefully at the reluctor / pickup. Apply side pressure on the shaft and see how far the shaft moves. Look for damage/ strikes/ debri on the pickup or reluctor

Unhook the dist. connector, and work it in/ out vigourously to "scrub" the contacts clean. Make sure it feels like it fits tightly. DO the same thing with the ECU connector.
 
I wouldn’t overlook a valve lash problem. Popping could be caused by a tight or burnt intake valve.
 
A lot of what you guys are saying involve starting the engine and at this point it's hit and miss, I killed my battery trying to start it. And if does start it will die as soon as I lay off the pedal.
 
do you have fuel? is it flooding out? ballast resistor? man this could be a lot of things. you have make sure you have fuel and spark first.
 
Do you read 12.30 volts on the battery ? A low battery with low amps will fire put if the coil is getting low voltage it will be a hard start, what color are the plugs as they fire. Yellow, red or blue.. And watch out for gas fowling a new plug :glasses7: I have dun it a few times :eek:ops:
 
I checked and all the spark plugs are good, the distributor was loose but that wasn't the problem, and the distributor cap and rotor are good. Now I'm stumped because all of these are good, and I guess it's not misfiring. Any help would be appreciated, to recap it will start maybe 1 of 10 times, it rumbles and shakes and I can't hit hi rpms, it seems like it want's to bog down and die if I let go of the gas pedal, and finally if I stop the car will almost instantly die.
 
if it were me, i would go after the fuel system. has it been running and just started doing this or was it after you did all the tune up. we need a little more history and chain of events to help you.
 
It just started happening out of the blue, I drove about 28 miles to see a friend and stopped at a taco bell to get lunch and as soon as I started it up it went funny. It started riding rough, jumping and pulling whenever I stopped to long.
 
it sounds like you are having carburetor problems, stuck float or lack of fuel would be my guess without being there. do you smell gas or does it smell like raw fuel when it is running? wish i could be more help, i know that crap suks. maybe a dirty old fuel filter idk
 
Fuel filter's pretty new, it was about the same time as the tune up. It might be the float, but I do not smell raw gas.
 
You mentioned that the engine dies when you let up on the gas pedal; therefore, keeping the gas pedal down keeps the engine running, but very rough?

Start the engine and look into the carb throat with it running. Do you see raw un-atomized fuel pouring into the throat? If so, there is a carb problem, such as a stuck mixture needle valve or flooded float.
 
Yeah, it may be carb problem. Just this morning it started shooting out black smoke clouds from the muffler.
 
Sounds like liquid gas pouring down the carb throat.
 
Check the reluctor gap.......I had one come loose and increase the gap to a point where i had similar symptoms.......not sure what the gap should be on a 6 cyl. distributer, the v-8 is .008 good luck
 
Well I rebuilt the carb and it made it a little better, but it is still having problems. It put-put-put and chugs like a train and if I let go of the gas it will idle for about three seconds and die. Help please!
 
I had a similar problem with my Dodge van 318 engine. It was rather intermittent and I couldn't nail it down. I tried everything only to find I had a bad batch of gasoline. I ran it through and have not had a problem since.
 
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