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1960 Fury 318 with no spark


CT Car Guy

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I am working on a 1960 Fury 318 that was in storage for over 25 years. I was able to get the engine started and running well without any major problems then I started having ignition issues. The car would start and run and then after 10 minutes or so, just die. It did not sound like fuel since when it died since it just stopped running. After that happened a few times, now it just will not start at all with no spark.

I started with replacing the badly pitted points and condenser. No help. The point gap is right on and I can see the points opening and closing on my ohm meter when cranking. I then replaced the coil and ballast resistor. The coil has 12v power and the resistor is good. I replaced the coil wire and checked all the plug wires. All are good but still no spark. The plugs are good and clean.

The rotor looks very good as does the inside of the cap. The center post has conductivity. I did notice when it was running, just before I replaced one plug wire (new wires on order) that the timing was a little jumpy. I plan on putting in a new rotor and cap. I put a spark plug on one of the wires and grounded it and still no spark at all. Everything in the primary circuit seems OK.

Suggestions as to the problem?

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Guest DodgeKCL

Forget for the moment everything after the coil. Hook up a sparkplug lead to the coil and connect a sparkplug to that and clasp the sparkplug to the engine with a C clamp or Vise Grips. Make sure the points are open or place a small piece of paper between them. Turn on the ignition and start grounding the wire that goes to the distributor. Usually just running a scewdriver blade back and forth across the post and ground will work. You MUST now be able to produce a spark across the sparkplug. You have to have spark at this point to fire the one plug or the system won't run the distributor and 8 plugs. If you don't, you have only the coil,condensor(capacitor) and the 12 volt supply to troubleshoot. Good luck. Let me know what you find.

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Forget for the moment everything after the coil. Hook up a sparkplug lead to the coil and connect a sparkplug to that and clasp the sparkplug to the engine with a C clamp or Vise Grips. Make sure the points are open or place a small piece of paper between them. Turn on the ignition and start grounding the wire that goes to the distributor. Usually just running a scewdriver blade back and forth across the post and ground will work. You MUST now be able to produce a spark across the sparkplug. You have to have spark at this point to fire the one plug or the system won't run the distributor and 8 plugs. If you don't, you have only the coil,condensor(capacitor) and the 12 volt supply to troubleshoot. Good luck. Let me know what you find.

What he said, or remove the dis.cap, hand rotate the engine to a points closed position, turn on ignition and manipulate the points open/close with a thin probe/screwdiver, making sure not to earth points anywhere; you should see a healthy spark at the points as you open them.

Quite often when people replace points they misfit the insulating washer/s on the points and they remain permantly grounded.

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Well the new coil tested good. I took an old spark plug, drilled a dimple in the side and soldered a wire in the dimple. Then I added a alligator clip so now, grounding would not be an issue. I took another piece of wire with a big clip on one end and a small clip in the other. The final piece of test stuff was a wire with a ring terminal and another clip. First I removed all of the wires from the coil. The wire with the big clip brought + to the coil from the battery. (Yes there was a fuse in the wire for safety.) The ring terminal wire went on the - side of the coil. When that wire was just touched to ground, I had a spark on the plug.

Next I replaced the cap and rotor with a new one. That means the points, condenser, cap rotor, wires and ballast resistor are all new. I tried to start the engine and it seems to fire once when the starter is engaged and then dies on disengagement. I checked for voltage with just the ignition on at the ballast and it was fine. Power is switching from by passing the resistor to through the resistor. I even tried the old ballast - no help. I wonder if when the ignition switch is moved off start, if there is a second of no power. Any other ideas?

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Well I got a spark... sort of. The engine ran like crap and would not idle. I checked the dwell and it was way off. Next I checked the points and they were very wide so I reset to .020 on top of the cam. Now it won't start and there is no spark. There is 12v to the coil. I am starting to think the lobes on the distributor look worn. That would explain why I had a spark with the point gaps big and no spark with the points at the proper gap. Comments?

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I have not removed the distributor yet. The shaft does not have any play and I have not noticed any wobble. Here are pictures of the distributor. I should note that when I ordered parts for the car, the ones that came in did not fit. (rotor & cap). according to the parts store, this is the distributor listed for the 361, not the 318. I wonder if was switched at some point. one thing I have learned, never assume anything. I have found lots of incorrect parts on car or changes that someone made in the past.

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Guest DodgeKCL

I think you know this already but I'll go through it anyway. The 'start' position of the key bypasses the ballast resistor and puts 12 volts directly on the coil for better,quicker,starts. When you release the key, the bypass disappears and current to the coil must now pass through the resistor. The coil now runs on 6 volts. The running ignition system is basically a 6 volt one. This was common on all Chrysler products for years. Two things can go wrong in the system and produce the fault you have. The resistor can go open circuit and the engine will start but stop the moment the key is returned to 'run'. This is the obvious one. The same fault can occur if the ignition switch is rusted or corroded inside. (This car hasn't been run in years?) Put a jumper from the battery over to the input side of the ballast resistor and disconnect the ignition switch wire. This is basically 'hot wiring' the engine. This will only supply 6 volts to the engine but it should start and run alright if nothing else is wrong. Does it start and run alright now? (The gap of the points is not really going to stop the engine from running. The gap was chosen for best saturation of the coil at all speeds. Yes it will change the timing but unless you've got it way off it won't make any difference to what you're doing now. The lobes on the distributor cam don't normally wear enough to worry about. The fibre cam follower on the points is made of fibre to do the wearing. Worn point cam follower and things slightly out of time will just make the engine hard to start on a cold day and give poor gas mileage and acceleration but not give the problems you're having.) By the way we're all assuming the car was running when put in storage?

Edited by DodgeKCL (see edit history)
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Update: Got the spark back and now it starts... sort of. I checked the input to the ballast resistor at run and it has 12V, The voltage at the coil, however, seems to be 12V when running. I will recheck it. So it starts but now the original problem when I got the car is back. It will run if the idle is above 1300 rpm but shut off if lower. Add to that that it will run at the 1300 idle and suddenly quit after a few minutes unless you pump the carb. It has a non-stock Holley 4V carb on an adapter plate. The carb was recently rebuilt because it leaked like crazy the first time I started the car. So the engine only runs with high idle, runs rough and will stalls on its own. It will restart without a problem. The spark plugs show a very rich mixture. All are carboned. I cleaned and re-gapped them a few times.

I did a compression check and all are at 135-145. Pulled the distributor to measure the cam lobes and there is .040 difference between the flats and lobes which would result in a .020 lift. The point plate was hard to move so I cleaned it. The resistance wire measurement is supposed to be 30,000 ohms but I could only get a few ohms shown on my digital meter. I plan to replace it. Fuel pressure is OK (new pump) and the system has been cleaned with fresh gas. If you let the car idle it will be fine for a few minutes and then die. It is like something is heating up. I put a volt meter on the run side of the ballast to see if the power was cutting out when the motor dies. It did not so it sounds like fuel.

I wonder if I am getting some sort of vapor lock with the new gas. I don't know if this means anything but when the engine is running, the exhaust fumes inside the engine compartment are very strong - makes my eyes burn. No exhaust leaks. Does the breather tube cause this? The tube has no filters or valves in it. Thanks in advance. As always, working on these cars is an educational (and sometimes frustrating) experience. Larry

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Update: Got the spark back and now it starts... sort of. I checked the input to the ballast resistor at run and it has 12V, The voltage at the coil, however, seems to be 12V when running. I will recheck it. So it starts but now the original problem when I got the car is back. It will run if the idle is above 1300 rpm but shut off if lower. Add to that that it will run at the 1300 idle and suddenly quit after a few minutes unless you pump the carb. It has a non-stock Holley 4V carb on an adapter plate. The carb was recently rebuilt because it leaked like crazy the first time I started the car. So the engine only runs with high idle, runs rough and will stalls on its own. It will restart without a problem. The spark plugs show a very rich mixture. All are carboned. I cleaned and re-gapped them a few times.

I did a compression check and all are at 135-145. Pulled the distributor to measure the cam lobes and there is .040 difference between the flats and lobes which would result in a .020 lift. The point plate was hard to move so I cleaned it. The resistance wire measurement is supposed to be 30,000 ohms but I could only get a few ohms shown on my digital meter. I plan to replace it. Fuel pressure is OK (new pump) and the system has been cleaned with fresh gas. If you let the car idle it will be fine for a few minutes and then die. It is like something is heating up. I put a volt meter on the run side of the ballast to see if the power was cutting out when the motor dies. It did not so it sounds like fuel.

I wonder if I am getting some sort of vapor lock with the new gas. I don't know if this means anything but when the engine is running, the exhaust fumes inside the engine compartment are very strong - makes my eyes burn. No exhaust leaks. Does the breather tube cause this? The tube has no filters or valves in it. Thanks in advance. As always, working on these cars is an educational (and sometimes frustrating) experience. Larry

Me thinks you should now leave the ignition alone and concentrate on the carb. Your description of carboned plugs, strong fumes, inability to idle etc. all sound like carb symptoms, despite it being rebuilt.

I would start with the likely culprits such as the choke mechanism, idle mixture screw settings, float level setting just to name a few.

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Thanks. I agree it seems to be fuel related. The big question is if the car ever ran correctly with the Holley carb? The intake manifold is stock and the carb is on an adapter plate that is open (no holes per barrel). I could be the jet size. Who knows what others have done. The choke is electric and opens correctly and I have played with the idle screws. When it did run at idle one time (on old gas), the idle screw adjustments had almost no effect probably because I could not get the idle low enough. I will re-check the float levels. Could the adaptor plate be the problem? I will check the model number of the Holley and the jet sizes. Larry

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Look very closely at the adapter plate and related gaskets. I was working on a boat the other day and after much frustration found one of the gaskets was leaking air. It was not as obvious as it would seem.

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Update:

Well the car starts but will not idle below 1500 rpm and even then runs rough. Sine the entire ignition has been replaced, we focused on the carb. Took it apart again, checked the idle circuits, checked the floats (needle valve was a little sticky but a little cleaner did the trick) and no help. I have a video so you can hear how it sounds. I don't do YouTube but am willing to send it directly since I don't think there is a way to attach it here.

The question is if the Holley 1860-1 ever worked! Was it considered a good replacement for the original? What should I replace the Holley with? This car is begging to run right but the problem seems to be too much fuel (plugs are black but dry). Compression is 135-145 across the board.

Ideas? Thanks

Larry in CT

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More information:

We are theorizing that the problem occurs when the choke is open and then fuel leans out. The sound of the airflow through the carb is uneven and the car will run if I give it throttle whenever is starts to slow down. Either it is very lean or the carb is very rich (jet size?). When it stops, it will start with opening the throttle. I think is actually floods out. The fume from the exhaust is very strong - burns my eyes. I don't want to replace the carb if the possibility that it was never compatible or correctly set up. Larry

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Final Update: The problem turned out to be the carb! I put on a new 1406 Edlebrock carb on today and with just a few adjustments had the car idling at 950 rpm. The timing mark is still jumpy at idle so I set the advanced timing to 27 degrees at 2000 rpm and it was steady at that speed. What a difference. I still think there is a street cam in the car because none of the adjustments get ride of a slightly lumpy idle. I will continue to fine tune as I go along. This is the second Edlebrock Carb I have used and both bolted right on and needed very little adjusting. No seems to make or have the OEM Carter for the 4V 318 set up. Next is cosmetics!

Larry

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