My 4th of July Vacation ignition meltdown!

[JJorgensen52]

Last weekend I left home and headed down to Cape Cod for a 4th of July family reunion - a full week of vacation! Being me, I took my stepper with my boat in tow - the trip is about 185 miles one way. Truck ran flawlessly on the trip down, cruising 70mph and averaging about 11mpg.

First order of business was to join the 4th of July parade:



but, that's not the meat of this story

Fast forward to Sunday PM - I'm loaded up, have a full tank and ready to head home. I'd had an odd mis-fire under load a few days prior due (I thought) to some HEAVY rain, figured there was some moisture under the cap, and it was fine after the next warm day so I figure I'm fine.

75 miles into my trip two things happen: I hit heavy traffic, and the truck starts mis-firing BAD above 2500rpm. This is prime cruise RPM, so I'm now limited to about 60mph tops on the flat and 50mph uphill. Of course, it decided to do this as I was cruising 75mph - end result, about 25 seconds of 7 cylinders not firing at all and raw fuel dumping into the exhaust. Followed by BAM! Here's what I saw when I pulled over:



Great. Now I have exhaust literally pouring into the cab by the driver's door and the truck has gotten 10x louder. Open all the windows and turn the blower on high to keep the fumes at a bearable level.

Tonight, wanting to know what happened, I popped the distributor cap off and found this:




Except, I had to use pliers to fish the contactor pieces out of the bottom of the dizzy. No wonder it didn't run right

Time for a new cap, rotor and wires. I can't believe the old girl ran (runs) at all like this

[into69z]

wowzer! Glad you made it home and the damage wasn't too bad. I bet when that thing backfired it made you want to check your shorts eh?






Only reason I bring it up is I know I would had to

[68 IRON]

Woah!!! Them things do have some power! I'm adding one to my I6...now I know it will live'n things up. That is amazing though....and you look like your truck was the show piece in the parade. Wanna buy a muffler

[JJorgensen52]

Originally Posted by into69z

wowzer! Glad you made it home and the damage wasn't too bad. I bet when that thing backfired it made you want to check your shorts eh?

Only reason I bring it up is I know I would had to

I was alright, loud noises in the truck are more common than I might care to admit but I tell you what, between the noise and the cloud of smoke I sure scared the guy behind me! He backed off about 15 car lengths after that.

Originally Posted by 68 iron

Woah!!! Them things do have some power! I'm adding one to my I6...now I know it will live'n things up. That is amazing though....and you look like your truck was the show piece in the parade. Wanna buy a muffler

I was one of only a couple trucks (a '55 NAPCO 4x4 with panoramic window and an squarebody K20) - my air horns were a crowd pleaser

I'm thinking I might just straightpipe it (tried to pound the muffler straight enough to weld it but no such luck) until I can afford a new exhaust in a couple months.

[msgross]

HEI upgrade maybe?


that muffler looks like a pipebomb...

[elf w/capital T]

baaaahahaha pipe bomb thats what i first thought, well glad to hear it wasnt tooo bad and you made it back safe

[shocker]

ive seen the rotor loosen up and come off under the cap but never seen the coil contact come off! I would replace the dizzy in case damage happened when the pieces jammed