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1969 Crank, but no start

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South Side Goons & Hitmen

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Discussion starter · #1 · (Edited)
Hello All,

My car cranks over fine. I have an MSD 6AL box. MSD coil, MSD 8.5 mm wires. The car has an electric Aeromotive (Red) Fuel Pump. I also have an externally mounted fuel pressure regulator. The carb is a Holley 750 Dbl Pumper. The carb was replaced in September and I have only put about 85 street driven miles on it. Six miles yesterday and none since November. The fuel pump was replaced at that time because the old one was leaking.

The facts: I checked for spark at one of the wires on the drivers side. Plenty of spark. Fuel Pressure is about 6 PSI which is good. Carb squirts plenty of fuel, Fuel Pump sounds like it's working nice & loud. This thing cranks & cranks and will nearly fire but it does not. Ocassionally it looks like vapor coming out of the carb after cranking. This has been going on since yesterday. I'm stuck here. Usually when I have both fuel & spark my cars will run. This is the first car I have owned with an MSD Box and I was not the one who installed it. (put on by prior owner). If it was flooded, this problem should have been resolved by sitting overnight. Thoughts??

All comments & opinions are welcome.

Thanks!!

Greg
 
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#2 ·
Sounds like its flooding to me and fouling the plugs , did you pull any of the plugs and see if they are wet. could be the float is stuck and dumping too much gas when you are trying to start it , especially if you are seeing vapor coming from the carb.
 
#4 ·
how good is the spark? i had a similar prob, it would get good fuel but weak spark to the plugs. its just the spark was so weak and there was too much fuel from all the cranking the weak spark couldnt ignite it.
 
Discussion starter · #5 · (Edited)
I's an MSD Pro Billett Distributor with an externally mounted coil. I have not taken the cap off yet. As far as the spark I took off the end of one of my wires (2nd cyl from the front on the drivers side) I placed one of my old plugs inside the end of it. No spark when I viewed it while I had my 7 year old crank the ignition (He thought that was cool). Then I touched the plug to the headers and I saw the spark. Then I used the old screw driver touching the end of the wire trick and the spark felt pretty strong. I used to do this with my HEI set up in my first 1969 and other GM Cars I once owned.

I forgot to mention above. On two occasions yesterday when craking it cranked for so long it backfired through the exhaust which sounded like a gunshot and scared the crap out of the neighbors across the street.
 
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#6 ·
South Side Goons & Hitmen said:
On two occasions yesterday when craking it cranked for so long it backfired through the exhaust which sounded like a gunshot and scared the crap out of the neighbors across the street.
Click to expand...
The unburned fuel in the exhaust did this.

As suggested, pull a plug or two to see how wet they are. If wet, pull all of them and dry them with air blast or sunstoke them. Hold throttle at WOT and crank the engine to remove some fuel. Install plugs and hook up a timing light to see if good spark and its timed correctly.

I'd pump the cold throttle twice, and start it. Remeber, it is not gonna run like a EFI engine.
 
Discussion starter · #8 · (Edited)
Guys, thanks for the response. I just took off the cap. It was very difficult to get off the distributor. The reason? You guys should have seen all the condensation under there. WOW!!! I have never seen it that bad in all my years. There was green stuff under the cap, oxidation, more green stuff on the distributor, and more oxidation. If you can picture sand on the beach well take a handful of that and throw it on the metal housing all over the crank trigger & everything else around it.

I've only owned this car a little over 6 months. I doubt that happens over 6 months. The seal from cap to distributor housing seemed tight. Even if the engine was powerwashed 10 times in 10 days, that much water, rust, condensation and garbage should never get under there. I doubt there is anyway this thing can get cleaned up. I removed it from the car. But the rust under where the cap & rotor sit is unbelievable. The gears where the springs are also have some rust. The top half of this things looks like what some aquatic explorer's like Jacque Cousteau would have found lying on the bottom of The Atlantic or Pacific Ocean after sitting there for 10 years.

This thing can't be more than 3 or 4 years old though, with maybe 5,000 miles on it. I doubt this can be saved even with sandblasting. I've seen aluminum "Turbine wheels" from a 1979 Z28 which were sitting outside for 15 years look better than the upper part of this thing. FWIW, it's an MSD 85551 Pro Billet
 
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Discussion starter · #10 ·
No. The prior owned had it for about 3 to maybe 4 years tops before I bought it. I bought it locally. Looks like it may have been an Illinois car it's whole life.

That top half of the distributor does look like Hurricane Katrina washed it into the ocean though. Wow!! I swear I've seen better looking O.E. distirbutors on cars that were 20+ years old back in the day.
 
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#12 ·
Greg STOP!!! I'm gagging from the thought of it! Oh, good creative writing. That was a fun 'read'.
 
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#13 ·
South Side Goons & Hitmen said:
That top half of the distributor does look like Hurricane Katrina washed it into the ocean though. Wow!! I swear I've seen better looking O.E. distirbutors on cars that were 20+ years old back in the day.
Click to expand...
One would think the amount of monies paid for an ignition system, the alum would come anodized.
 
Discussion starter · #14 ·
Yea, go figure. I agree Everett. This distributor retails for what $232 from Jegs or Summit and it was oxidized to all hell. Nasty I swear. Unbeleivable how much corrosion and stuff. I bought a cap & rotor for it a few hours ago and the guy at the parts store even said he could not believe it until he saw it with his own eyes. And that was just the distributor cap he saw. I swear it looked like someone threw 2 tablespoons of sand under it and three more tablespoons by the magnetic pickup. I found stuff at the beach in Chicago and in Warren Dunes, MI as well that was burried for 15 years in better shape. It's amazing this car ran. Hopefully I will have it back together by Saturday night. No wonder some of you may have thought it was a Hurricane victim.

MSD should be ashamed of themselves really. The top distributor gear looked like it was from 1902, the vaccum advance weights although not used also had rust on them. Like I said the corrosion for an aluminum distributor was unbelievable. The prior owner had this car for 3-4 years. This set up was put on then and he did not put that many miles on it (Maybe 5k miles if that). I've driven it a total of 85 miles since September. And only 6 -8 miles since November. Those 6 - 8 were on Saturday. The car is also garage kept and it appeared to be garage kept by the prior owner as well. I checkd the MSD website and this setup was copyrighted back in 2002.

It looks like I cleaned it up but it took me about 2 1/2 to three hours to do so!! No wonder why some guys go with he stainless steel HEI. The next one will be anodized. Like I said, I learn something new every day.

Fred, as always thanks for the response.
 
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South Side Goons & Hitmen
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