37 voltage going crazy?

[chstickl]

Hi, when I took my 37 80C for a spin, the car stalled in idle and never started again. The starter motor turned fine, but there was no ignition.

Back home, I found the folowing:

Voltage at battery: 6.3V, fully charged

Voltage at ignition lock and at ignition coil without engine: 3.4V (!!) starter turns but engine doesn´t start.

Voltage when engine runs at ignition lock: 8.3V, so a bit on the high end

So somwhere between battery and ignition, 3V get lost and I have no explanation. Since the charge indicator didn´t really react, I suspect this one, but am not sure.

When I bridged thr ignition coil to battery directly, the engine started immediately.

Has anybody seen something like this and can help with a hint?

Is the voltage regulator responsile for that behaviour?

Thanks for your help,

Christian

Edited April 22, 2011 by chstickl (see edit history)

[Mark Shaw]

Check the ignition switch itself. In my 38 Special the contacts were full of carbon and it woud only start when I pushed on it... It is a simple switch that you can remove, clean, and tweak the copper contacts to push a little harder to make good contact.

Be careful when you pull it apart and note the little hole is the key to how it all fits together.

Good luck,

[chstickl]

I finally found out that the contacts to and from the charge indicator were corroded and a bit loose. I pushed a bit on the wires and tightened the nuts - everything fine now. Amazing that it worked fine for long and quite suddenly failed.

That was an easy one.

Christian