Shenanigans.

[Oregoon]

So here's one for you--

Driving my '74 LWB (2wd with a 250 L6) to work the other night (I'm a trucker, so I work weird hours), I started hearing what sounded like belt noise. I wound-down my window, pushed the clutch in and gave the truck a bit of fuel to see if the noise would go away, or change pitch.

My efforts were greeted by the mother of all backfires--like a 1/4 stick of dynamite had gone off in my muffler!--and the truck promptly died. I coasted into a parking lot, and discovered coolant dripping from my cross-member. Fearing the worst, I gave the engine a visual once-over, and discovered a loose distributor-clamp and what I suspected was a bad water-pump.

I tried a few eye-ball/hail-mary settings with the distributor, and she coughed to life, then died and that was all she wrote. Figuring I'd fouled the plugs trying to start it, I called AAA and towed her home. I did have coolant and a a 9/16 with me, and I couldn't believe that I couldn't get started, tighten down the distributor and limp it home...

When I returned from work 24 hours later, I put the key in the ignition, and she fired right up. Sounded fine. I let her idle until warm, went in the house to grab my timing light, and when I came back outside... She died again. Being exhausted, I said screw it, and went inside to get some rest.

Next day I put a new water-pump in, and static-timed her. Pulled the carb apart and gave it a once-over in case the back-fire had caused problems. Everything looked good--the backfire had been in the tail-pipe--so I reassembled and installed my carb, checked for fuel and spark, turned the key, and she coughed, tried to start, and then died. No amount of trying would get her to run.

Being as the truck is my daily-driver and I had to go to work again, I hit up a mechanic-friend to take a look, and went on another 1000-mile trucking odessey.

Went by his shop today, and all is well. It seems the spade-connector for my coil ('75 HEI with a separate coil) loosened up, and totally-unrelated but right around the same time, the water-pump started weeping, and the fan tossed the coolant onto the upper-hose, and it leaked down along an adjacent wiring loom, and into my distributor-clamp, which vibrated loose...

Wild! Every time I reached in to turn the distribtor cap, I would brush against the wires leading to my coil, and the loose connector would alternately make or break contact. Madness! Talk about chasing a gremlin...

Anyway, one new connector later, all is well. We warrantied the enitre coil assembly, just in case.

Well, all is well except that monster-backfire found the weak-point in my 41-year old muffler... But that's a problem for another day. Soon...