Ok, this is wierd. 67 Camaro, 350 crate motor, electronic ignition, everything is new and it's 4 years old. It always started and ran just fine.

About 6 months ago the car wouldn't start after sitting for a week. It was cranking fine and after some poking around I took the distributor cap off and kinda wiped everything off inside the cap and on the rotor and put the cap back on and the car fired right up. Three months go by and the same thing happened. Keep in mind I drive this car at least a few days a week, it's being started from cold starts every few days. This time I take the distributer cap off and check everthing for a loose connection. I notice a few wires plugged into the distributer cap and remove all those and clean all the connections. The car fires right up.

Now, about a month or so goes by and the same thing happend last night as I was headed to the local "cruise in". Again, I go through all the connections, remove the d-cap and generally poke around and after several attempts the car fired up and runs perfectly.

How do I trouble shoot this? In what sequence would things be replaced to narrow the cause? Everything looks perfect. There's no oil, dampness or anything under the cap. All the wires appear unkinked, not melted and securly in place. I guess it's a loose connection somewhere but everything looks so good that I'm stumped. I mean every connection is clean, tight and in good order.

Give me some direction guys !!

What kind of distributor/ ignition system does it have?
Dale

Depending on where you live, condensation could be building up in the cap. I know the nights are getting cooler there in AZ which could cause condensation, but generally your humidity is so low I wouldn't think that is a problem. WD-40 sprayed inside the cap is the typical fix-it for condensation.

It almost sounds like you've got a loose connection somewhere, and in the process of fiddling you move the connection and viola. Now that you've got yourself oriented among the wires you've been fiddling with, have a helper try to crank it next time it won't fire while you wiggle wires.

If the distributor body isn't well grounded that could cause some intermittant misbehavior.

Thanks so far- I'm not sure what type of distributor is it the cap says Delco? That's all I could find with the markings. I just looked for a ground wire and could not find it. All I can see is one white wire that rund into a plug near the top of the d-cap. It comes out of a cluster of wires leaving the firewall. Out of the same area, at the top of the cap, a three wire harness runs from there into the metal structure at the bottom of the d-cap.

Those are the only four wires I see entering, around or leaving the cap. Except the spark plug wires, of course :-)

Can someone explain what I'm looking at and even more importantly how this all works? I assume the white wire is from the iginition/key and the three wire harness spins the rotor? I could be just guessing, but I know you guys will straighten me out. What can be replaced under the distributor cap? Or can a distributor go bad?

I don't think it could be mosture, as it happened twice this summer. The first time was late May and then again in August and now here in mid-November.

I don't know where I would turn without this board.