Cranks and wont start

[pyro883]

My truck cranks and cranks and wont start. It ran on thursday when I went and picked it up and ran for 170 miles back here to south carolina and then then I had to replace the starter and now it wont start, it cranks and cranks but nothing. Tried starting fluid and still nothing. Any help would be great.

[cdowns]

pull a plug and see if you've got spark if not then check the dwell of the points check to see if you've got 12volts at the coil

[pyro883]

I pulled the plug and I am not getting any spark at the wire. I have looked under the hood and cant find a coil. But my distributor cap has a bunch of wires running up to it with a black box on the top and then wires running to the distributor. I pulled off the rotor and everything is brand new. I just bought this truck on saturday. And all of that looks new. There are some wire splices that I dont know if I should check because it had been running fine and then sat for 2 days and wont run now.

[truckdude239]

sounds like someone converted to hei check to make sure they did not use the yellow wire that original wire, wire a new wire from a 12 volt switched source and pick up a new hei coil

[OlChev67]

maybe burned up a wire or fuse, or a wire came off or got loose somewhere when puttin on new starter. Check the simple things first, my truck gets "symptoms" every once in a while. Where in SC are you?

[eedgell]

Start with the starter replacement. Look for a wire that maybe did'nt get put back on. Sounds like the source of your problem. Does your truck have point type dizzy?

[truckdude239]

heres a ttt

[GruntyPants]

There is a wire that comes up from the starter (from the 'I' terminal I believe) that runs up to the positive side of the coil. It supplies a full 12V to the ignition system for easier starts. Although you should be getting 7-8 volts to the positive side of the coil from the switched ignition power. I would check that first and make sure the negative side of the coil is connected to the distributor. Good luck.

[pyro883]

I managed to find the problem. The guy who owned it before me had rigged up the HEI in a ghetto fashion and the wire had come loose I redid the splices and it works now. Now onto the next problem.

[mnunn454]

Before leaving this problem too fast, just one subtle point made above. The HEI sould have 12 volts running to it. The "normal" resistance wiring was made for the points setup and only supplied about 8-9 volts.

If you have an HEI setup, you'll need to make sure you're getting 12 volts to it, and if not, replace the special resistance wire with a plain wire.