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i have a 302 that will not fire. i have replaced the ignition coil,spark plugs and module and still nothing.ive checked the wiring and the electric ignition it seems to be fine.can i run my ignition coil straight off my battery without shorting anything out?
Did you have the brain box checked???
First of all, welcome to CHR. :) Secondly, we need more info:
1) Did you ever have the car running?
2) If so, why did it stop or what changes did you make?
3) Year? Carb or Fuel Injection?
With some exceptions, all an engine needs to fire is fuel and spark. Have you checked to see if you have spark to the plugs. One of those $ 5 inline spark checkers can tell you that. If it lights up, you have spark.
If you have spark, try a little shot of starting fluid.
Give us the whole story so we have something to go on, otherwise all you are going to get is a lot of guesses.
Don
the guy who sold it to me said he had it running real strong im not sure of the year of the motor but it has just been rebuilt and its got a holly double pumper mds distributer and coil...4 barrel carb,there are a lot of dead end wires...i cant find a fuse box to save my life lol...i put a light tester on the battery and it lit up but then i put i on the coil and i got nothing...the guy who set up the timingon the distributer had it to where it was barely touching the outside of it dont know if that would be the prolem cause i can see where it had been catching...also a mechanic i had spoken to said not to use starting fluid because it was to dry...i dont know if any of this helps or not im new to muscle but i appreciate the help...im open to any ideas thanks guys
whats a brain box by the way
Ok, now we have something to go on. Fords are wired through a starter solenoid that is remotely mounted from the starter (unlike Chevy who puts the solenoid on the starter). It is a black plastic affair that has two large terminals on it (one in from battery + and another cable to the one post on the starter.
There are two other little terminals on the solenoid. One is the one that you put juice to to get the solenoid to kick in, and the other one is "I" for ignition. Run a wire from that terminal to the + side of your coil. Put your test light on it after that and you should have 12 volts to the coil. Bet it starts then.
BTW, starting fluid if used sparingly is ok, you just don't want to use too much of it. Lots of controversy about that, but I have used it for years and it has gotten me out of some jams.
With your Holley carb you should be able to look down the throat while pumping the gas and watch it squirt though. (engine off :eek: )
Don
but i think that the solenoid is in the starter on this specific starter,would i still be able to pull that off?
Not unless there is something specific to this one that I don't know about....virtually every Ford I have seen has no solenoid on the starter, it is mounted on the passenger side fender well generally. Anything is possible, but I don't think so.
In any event, simply track your fat positive battery cable from the battery. Where does it go on your car? Have you been able to turn the key to start and get it to crank? If possible, post some good pictures, but if not, we can still get through this.
Don
i might be able to post pics tomorrow.it cranks but no smoke,cough or backfire at all,the positive cable on my battery is hooked up to the starter and everything else electric runs off the same cable going up to the starter.the person who did all the wireing is obviously wasnt a professional,there are so manydead end wires that i cant tell what goes to what...if i hook up the coil to the battery do i risk shorting anything?
Well, I guess there is a Ford starter I am not familiar with. It seems yours has a solenoid on the starter, especially if you can crank it.
No, you should be able to go directly from the battery + post to the + side of the coil with no problems, except your key switch will only control the cranking function until you solve the wiring issues. In some careers, this is called "hot wiring" (not that an upstanding citizen like me has any personal knowledge of such activities :LOL: ) Maybe go to the not so nice part of your home town.........any 14 year old kid should be able to fire that 302 up in about 20 seconds for you!!
Don
(I'm assuming you probed the + terminal on the coil with the key in the run position and the ground lead of the test light had a good ground)Quote:
Originally Posted by treese13
Does it have a ballast resistor? Most old engines either use a ballast resistor or a resistor wire between the ignition switch and the ignition coil to reduce the voltage to the coil.
If you have a ballast resistor, you can check it using your test light.
- if there's power on one side but not the other, it's a bad resistor.
- If there's power on both sides, the wire from the resistor to the coil is bad.
- If there's no power to the resistor, it's either a bad wire to the ignition switch, a faulty ignition switch, or just plain miswired.
I would not recommend running a coil directly off the battery for an extended period of time unless you know for sure that it's a 12v coil (most stock coils are 6v - many 12v coils are just 6v coils with an internal ballast resistor). I blew-up a coil once because I overheated it with too much voltage - no firey explosion or anything, the can just ruptured and spewed oil everywhere.
Hope this helps.
Good Luck.
ive seem to mislead you guys...the solenoid is not in the starter:D
the one circled on the far left is the starter solenoid, Its not mine, I just pulled a picture up from the net. And unless its a chevy powered ford the solenoid is on the right fender inner skirt.
thanks for the pic but how am i supposed to tell the difference between the + and the - on the solenoid?{my solenoid is is on the right next to my transmission,cant really tell}
thanks for the pic but how am i supposed to tell the difference between the + and the - on the solenoid?{my solenoid is is on the right next to my transmission,cant really tell}:CRY:
Be real careful of what starter and off starter solenoid set up that you have. The new starters have the solenoid built into the can on top of the starter with the one on the firewall being merely a relay for the start signal - and I don't have a clue when these were installed - mid '90s maybe. With the new setup you have 2 heavy wires on one terminal with a lighter one running to the starter - there being 2 wires rather then a single heavy one like the older Fords.
This is what I mean. The sketch on this page is NOT the solenoid I'm using - I'm using the older style, with some mods to my wiring
Now you got me confused. What does this problem have to do with the starter solenoid?
Maybe I misread this thread, but here are the symptoms as I understand them:
- The engine cranks; but no smoke,cough or backfire.
- There is no power to the coil.
Unless you're looking to replace a blown fuse-link, there is no reason to even look at the starter solenoid.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe G
Yeah, it's a little confusing. Someone else put this thing together evidently, and wires are hanging loose all over. He has no juice to the coil, and Fords pickup the ignition voltage from the second small terminal on the solenoid generally. That is how the solenoid came into this. We are trying to get him to start at ground zero and see where he is not connected.
Don
Oh. Thanks for clearing that up.
I always thought that the connection from the solenoid to the coil was only hot while cranking - to bypass the resistor and give the coil a full 12v and thus a hotter spark during startup. I have certainly been wrong before. Guess I'll just watch this thread and see if I can't learn something rather than speaking out of school.
Thanks.
Yep, you are right about that wire only supplying juice when the engine is cranking. I actually forgot about that. He will need to get 12 volts from the battery + terminal and hook the wire to the coil +.
Good call Joe.:) :)
Don
Quote:
Originally Posted by Itoldyouso
Don - that depends on the vintage of the car/starter. Take a gander at the page I posted above. I sat looking at the instructions for the starter for my project car after owning Fords dating back to '32 and decided I really didn't understand why the battery cable and the cable to the starter landed on the same terminal with the small wire landed on what was originally the starter cable terminal. What Ford has done is make that good ol' solenoid that we all know and love into a relay. The "can" on the starter is now the solenoid with the 'big' wire always hot, the 'small' wire being the wire that comes from the 'relay' as the operator for that 'new' solenoid, being activated by the 'S' terminal being hooked to the starter switch. It took a while for me to get my mind wrapped around that new hookup.
If need be, I can post the rest of the Ford SVT instruction or it can be looked at in the SVT catalog, but it really doesn't tell you a lot more why it has been changed by Ford.
Confusing to any old Fordnatic like me????:whacked:
With MSD ignition nine times out of ten a failure to start is indication of a bad or non-existent ground. Engine will crank over but no 12v power is supplied to coil or brain box. If the solenoid is bad or faulty, generally the engine will not crank over or will crank over intermittenly. I've experienced both problems.
One thing treese13 never made clear is if he has an MSD Brain box...if he does he needs to check and make sure the box is properly grounded. I had a MSD box that ,keyword here, "had" been properly grounded. When I pulled the old engine that ground wire was broken some how and when the new engine build went back in I could not get it to start....nothing had changed... I finally located the broken ground wire, temped it together and the new engine fired right off. Replaced the wire and never had another ignition problem.
is the distributor in the back like it suppose to be? :D :LOL: