Won't start. HELP!

[chucks70]

My son was home over the holidays and while here I put a new cap, rotor, plugs, points and condenser and put an electric choke on the Edelbrock carb. I set the dwell and timing according to the book. It ran fine when here and he drove it back to Morgantown with no problem. Drove it for a week no problem. Parked one night, next morning wouldn't start. He says it cranks fine but isn't trying to fire off. He checked the wires hooked to the coil, they're tight. It's getting gas to the carb.

Any ideas of what/how to check things out. I'm not real mechanically inclined especially when it comes to electric and my son is much less so than I. How do I check if the coil is OK or not? Is there anything under the dash inside that may have come loose? fuse?

How closely related are Dwell and Point Gap or are the basically different ways to do the same thing since adjusting the dwell moves the points. I see an 80 mile road trip coming on.

[Gordo]

You need to check 2 things first, spark and fuel. Tell him to remove a spark plug wire from a spark plug that's accessible, instert a screw driver into to the plug wire boot making contact with metal end inside boot and place the screw driver shaft close to an engine ground leaving aprox 1/4" gap for spark to jump. Have someone crank the engine over and observe for spark. If it shows no spark I would probably check into the distributor for problems first, such as moisture, grease etc, anything that doesn't belong in there. Remove, clean and reset the points. Check for power at the positive side of the coil with ignition on, which you should. If it has spark check for fuel next, using starting fluid or carb cleaner spray a small amount down into carb throat then crank the engine to see if there is a response. If it attempts to run briefly you have fuel delievery problems.
A good rule of thumb I often use is when something goes wrong, first look where the last place it was worked on, which in your case would be the distributor area.

[franko72]

if the key was left turned on for a while without running the engine and the points were in the closed position , then they could have got burned.I would change the points and condenser out for another set if I were going to pull them out to inspect them,they are cheap parts.sounds to me like the points got burned

[chucks70]

Has fuel to the carb, he took the air cleaner off and it squirts in the venturis and when he cranks and holds the throttle open he can see fuel moving in the fuel filter (clear plastic kind). No spark from the coil wire as tested with screw driver in the wire held close to a ground. What gets me is that it ran for about 2 weeks with no problem.

[franko72]

Change or re check the points. Maybe a bad condenser.

[chucks70]

Had a nice little three hour round trip drive today. Went straight for the points and thats what it was, defective part. The contact on the fixed side of the points had fallen off, found it on the dist. shaft...magnetized to it. I guess it had fallen off while running because there were burn marks on the steel part it fell off of. Just wouldn't let it start up again.

[weasel29gm]

Hey Chuck, Northern Auto Parts has a HEI dizzy for $99. That would prevent future road trips. LOL!!! Glad you got him goin' Later Weasel!!