Electric issue?

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D_Toro

D_Toro

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Surrey, England
Hi all.

Here's what's going on:

Car has a Holley 650 on a 360, car will start as normal in the morning after one or 2 pumps. After it starts I usually pump a bit more and then use the choke to warm it up a bit, then off to the road.
9 out of 10 times the car will die on the road at some point in the next mile and won't turn on again. I have to wait a couple of minutes and it will fire as normal and spend the whole day without any issues.

What the hell can be causing that?
I have replaced the fuel filter and pump and very convinced it's a electrical issue.

So I believe we have a few options:
-voltage regulator
-coil
-ecu?
-distribuitor

Main question is would a voltage regulator cause that and why? Though the VR was to charge the battery only but had some people suggesting the VR may be the cause.

Thank you.

1626690282960.jpg
 
Need some more info, battery voltage? Does it spark when It does not start? ETC When you say does not start do you mean crank?
 
halifaxhops said:
Need some more info, battery voltage? Does it spark when It does not start? ETC When you say does not start do you mean crank?
Click to expand...

Yes, it cranks as normal just won't fire up.
Haven't checked battery voltage yet since I need help (battery is in the trunk) and didn't check the lack of spark either since I was considering fuel issue so far.
 
Do that first usually a voltage regulator is not related to this uness there is no charge at all. Were here to help just need the right answers to eliminate things. Allmost sounds like something might be making intermittent contact.
 
Define won’t turn on again. Turns over and won’t start or dead altogether?
Sure its not flooding out?

Heres where I would begin. Won’t cost a dime either. Make sure the floats are below the sight hole, not trickling out. I would tie the choke open. You don’t need it. Just start the car and drive it. See if that helps IMHO.

Good luck!
 
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D_Toro said:
Hi all.

Here's what's going on:

Car has a Holley 650 on a 360, car will start as normal in the morning after one or 2 pumps. After it starts I usually pump a bit more and then use the choke to warm it up a bit, then off to the road.
9 out of 10 times the car will die on the road at some point in the next mile and won't turn on again. I have to wait a couple of minutes and it will fire as normal and spend the whole day without any issues.

What the hell can be causing that?
I have replaced the fuel filter and pump and very convinced it's a electrical issue.

So I believe we have a few options:
-voltage regulator
-coil
-ecu?
-distribuitor

Main question is would a voltage regulator cause that and why? Though the VR was to charge the battery only but had some people suggesting the VR may be the cause.

Thank you.

View attachment 1715767849
Click to expand...


Just looking at the ECU. Take out the bolt holding it to the inner fender, Clean the paint off the inner fender down to bare metal under the bolt, Also, clean off the paint on the other side of the bolt hole in the ECU. Do this to get the best possible contact to ground for the ECU as grounding of it is a common problem.

I don't think its a ballast resistor as I don't think the problem would go away . As you stated, Once you restart the car it runs fine.
 
How do you even know it's electrical?

Do you have a tach on the car? Does it normally indicate when cranking? If so you should be able to see if the tach does or does not indicate, cranking, when the problem exists (Some tachs are wired such that they go dead in crank so may not be the case)

I would "'rig" a small LED/other pilot lamp onto the power coming to the ballast. Pull the ECU off clean and remount, make CERTAIN the ECU is grounded. Pull all ignition system connectors and "work" them in/ out to scrub the terminals, and inspect them. The ECU, the distributor, and the ballast.

Another thing you can try is IMMEDIATELY when it dies, don't do anything, don't recrank, etc go out and --with key still in "run" check for power to ECU, and then pull the distributor connector. Take the ECU half of the connector (not the dist end) and tap the bare side of the connector to ground. Using the coil wire, look for spark. It should make one single "snap" spark every time you ground it
 
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I can't speak for anyone else but based on the info OP gave, I'm just guessing!
He says car starts, runs for a few minutes, shuts off . When he restarts, it runs fine all day.

That would seem to eliminate carburation/fuel delivery. I had a similar issue when I repainted the engine compartment of my car. ECU wasn't grounding because of paint . I cleaned off paint on firewall and ECU based on a suggestion I found on here. Never had the problem after. Easy fix so I thought I'd suggest it .
 
The issue you describe sounds very similar to carb icing .
Surrey can have hi humidity in summer.
Icing creates snow down by the throttle plates, - that then plugs the idle circuits in the base plate.. - causing it to stall.
You can immediately remove the air cleaner, - and shine a light down the carb, you very well may see snow on the throttle plates.
Cure, - let it warm up a few mins, before driving .
 
inertia said:
The issue you describe sounds very similar to carb icing .
Surrey can have hi humidity in summer.
Icing creates snow down by the throttle plates, - that then plugs the idle circuits in the base plate.. - causing it to stall.
You can immediately remove the air cleaner, - and shine a light down the carb, you very well may see snow on the throttle plates.
Cure, - let it warm up a few mins, before driving .
Click to expand...


Interesting Inertia ! But wouldn't you experience a major loss of power before the engine actually shut off ? OP didn't mention anything about power loss before engine quits . Also, wouldn't heat from the engine prevent icing in the first place?
 
No power loss till you drop down to idle circuit, and the plugged idle slots .
This condition lasts maybe 2 stop signs, - after initial cold morning start . Under hi humidity..
Fine the rest of the day.
 
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Carb icing can be interesting. There was a young female around here who had a Chev pickup 6 whanger, and someone had put a ?Clifford?, big carb, and header. I ended up adding a heated water plate under the carb, and found her a smog air filter and makeshift made a stove on the header for "snorkle heat." It helped. The damn thing was nearly undriveable on cool, humid days, and it doesn't even have to be that cool............mostly just "springtime humid."

I also vaguely remember a Veedub or Corvair dune buggy when I was at NAS miramar.......had a tube intake up high above the engine, with a 2bbl. That thing was building ice on the bottom of the manifold on a HOT San Diego summer day!!

All "street" OEM engines have some form of carb heating, and Ford used to use coolant heated plates under the carb. This actually helps stabilize the temp because when it's hot, it can't get warmer than the coolant

Ask any pilot about carb icing........it has killed people!!
 
A lot of good responses/ideas here to work with . keep in mind that the pick up in the dist is very hard to diagnose.i had one do this exact thing for 3 months before i finally changed it and the problem went away.
 
Thanks all.

I'll spend some time tomorrow doing a few of the suggestions here today and tell how it goes. I can always borrow something from the other car to try. :D

inertia said:
The issue you describe sounds very similar to carb icing .
Surrey can have hi humidity in summer.
Icing creates snow down by the throttle plates, - that then plugs the idle circuits in the base plate.. - causing it to stall.
You can immediately remove the air cleaner, - and shine a light down the carb, you very well may see snow on the throttle plates.
Cure, - let it warm up a few mins, before driving .
Click to expand...

Interesting... even when it's unbelievably hot?
 
D_Toro said:
Thanks all.

I'll spend some time tomorrow doing a few of the suggestions here today and tell how it goes. I can always borrow something from the other car to try. :D

No, under very hot would be unusual.
I just know it's fairly humid there,
Here it's a few week spring and fall .



Interesting... even when it's unbelievably hot?
Click to expand...
 
I doubt you would get carb icing in the UK in July.

When it dies, is it very sudden or is there some momentary rough running? Sudden failure is more likely to be electrical, fuel problem might run rough then die.

Process of elimination

You gotta start somewhere, right?

I would do this, simple & cheap. Use 12v buzzer. Have it in the cab with you. Connect one end to ground; connect the other end to the coil + terminal. When the problem happens, if the buzzer stops, then you are losing 12v to the coil. If ok, next step.
One of the ballast resistors is 5 ohms; one end of it goes to the 5 pin plug on the ECU. Connect the buzzer wire to this terminal & check for loss of buzzer. Buzzer might sound different, that is ok.
 
Ok, so today I removed the ECU and using a dremel removed any paint around the screw holes.
I removed the plug from the ballast resistor and noticed they're very "white", don't think it it should be like that. I'll post a picture below.

Yes I did considered flooding but definitely isn't. Thought it was for some time and every time it stalls I would keep the gas pedal all way down and tried to restart. Nothing.

The car just stalls, no sign of losing power of anything like that, it's like if someone had turn the ignition off. Maybe a backfire? Not sure. After that it will crank as normal but won't fire up.
It can happen on the drive, going out of the drive, when I'm about to access the avenue about 200m from home (it's favourite place to stall) or even further than that, being the further place that happened about 1.5 mile distance from home.

I just remembered when that happened once it was just off the drive, I was running late and had to leave the car on the road. When I came back (after about 30 min) tried to start and nothing, just cranking and nothing else. I removed the distributor cap and noticed some "grease" in the centre of the cap, where the rotor touch the little ball inside. Gave it a good clean and wiped a sandpaper in the rotor and it started straight away.
 
Try working all the ignition system connectors in/ out several times to "scrub" them. The distributor connectors are especially trouble prone, as they carry almost no current
 
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