Frogman

Merry Christmas every one , I woke up this morning to go to work and my trusty 7 decided it didn't want to start. It cranks strong and burbles but refuses to catch .

I drove the car last Thursday night and it sat four days .

There have been heavy rains but the car was under a car port and i made sure to let the car idle 15 mins before i shut it off to ensure no water pooled etc.

Im thinking the engine is flooded , i have it its normal three pumps and then about another 10 pumps over the half hour i tried to turn the car on .

Ideas?

LongDuck

Flooded.

Pull plugs and move them away from the plug holes. Crank a bit to blow out the fuel. Reinstall. Starter fluid down the intake and crank until start. If you wanted to be thorough, do an oil change, because all that excess fuel went past your Oil Control Rings and your Oil will be diluted with gasoline now. Diluted mix doesn't lube bearings very well.

Report back,

LongDuck

(*double-tap)

Frogman

Will do .
I will have time to work on the car tomorrow (friday) .

Question.
Do I need to disconnect the fuel pump ?

Should I add MMO / Oil / ATF to the engine via the carb ?

This has never happened . I have 4 new plugs ready to go .

I will 100% do an oil change , it's due in 200 miles anyways.

Frogman

Car is up and running

I took the plugs out , the top plugs were both very wet with gas.Bottom plugs were dry. cranked the engine until mist stopped coming out the holes Put new plugs in , some MMO down the crab and baby fired right up !

Carl

iTrader: (2)

Glad it is back up and running. It might have been the plugs though. I have run into that more times than I care to recall. Won't start or bad miss and it ends up being a bad plug (or wire). It would be interesting to see what happens if you put the old plugs back in. Keep in mind though that suggestion is coming from a retired engineer who has lots of time to go down technical rabbit holes, frequently with little chance of successfully getting out :-)

Happy Holidays.

Carl

LongDuck

Agreed, Carl - I'd be curious, too. These aged electrical and ignition systems were "good enough" when brand new, but with corrosion and age, they're barely effective enough and have likely lost a lot of performance. Newer cars with coil-on-plug Ignitors and shorter paths are likely much more robust when it comes to CDI and hot spark.

Another reason to carry around a fresh can of starter fluid in the rear bin...

Frogman

I would love to experiment but since i daily my car and it's automatic , this hinders my ability to play around . The bottom right plug is hard to remove since the trans fluid pipe partially obstructs its removal . I had to remove the mounting bracket to move the pipe just enough to remove the plug , fun stuff.

I was happy to know my plugs didn't have oil / carbon . they looked reddish brown. One plug had very minor carbon deposits on the tip of the electrode. I do think they have been struggling ever since the ATF and hard start issues I had that may have made them run poorly.

Frogman

Well , this morning i turn the car on , and now it is acting as if the alternator is disconnected. Rpm is voltage and all my lights are on , it " fixed itself " randomly and then came back , what's going on , I must have moved a cable on accident ?

LongDuck

Check the grounds in the area where you were working. There's one that bridges from Battery Negative to the DS strut tower and then down to the Starter. If your alternator isn't showing output, the dash gauges will behave as you described (*on an SA). Many of us have installed additional ground straps and cables to the Alternator mounting bracket for better charging effect.

You can never have too many grounds,

Frogman

I have no idea how wiring works , there are no cables attached to my driver side strut tower either . My cables look modified ( switched to electronic ignitors) .
There may be a possibility my alternator went bad . Where can i buy a new one?

So I disconnected the negative cable and the car shut down , the alternator must be bad ?

Or would a bad voltage regulator cause this too?

I don't think the voltage regulator is bad tho , the car runs fine and I have read that a bad voltage regulator causes bad idle, rough driving etc.

KansasCityREPU

iTrader: (9)

Put a premade cable from the battery ground to the factory spot on the driver's side struct tower and another from the back side of the alternator long bolt to that same factory location. Get the premade cables that have an eye on both ends.

Frogman

Where is this " factory spot " .

I'm currently trying to source a new alternator , When i disconnected the negative the car shut off.

KansasCityREPU

iTrader: (9)

There is a threaded bolt hole about mid-way down the inner face of the driver's side shock tower. The factory cable has a lug inline at this spot. Since your negative cable has been replaced, adding the additional one or two is a good thing.

Frogman

I think the issue here is a voltage regulator . The car randomly made a clicking sound and switched to tach . A bad alternator doesn't fix itself but a faulty voltage regulator can work intermittent.

Are there any fuses i should check ,I 100% know it's not a wiring issue , it fixed itself and I drove for half an hour with zero issues , shut it down and started back up and the tach was acting bad again . If a wire was loose or disconnected it wouldn't work and a bad alternator wouldn't charge .

KansasCityREPU

iTrader: (9)

Before replacing the external regulator at $90, I'd try a $5 ground cable.

Frogman

I will purchase the cable but I'm going to need pictures to guide me . I trust you guys but on a 1-10 on electric issues My understanding is about a 2 .

Frogman

The tach goes from working to not working randomly .

I just need these few things answered.
1 I have a electronic distributor with igniters I still have my external voltage regulator if I buy an alternator from Atkins rotary that is labeled 1979 only, will this alternator work. The alternator on my car looks stock .

There is no shop around me that can service my alternator for under the cost of a new reman.

2- The voltage Regulators sold on RockAuto only have one cable sticking out the one on my car has three cables. The voltage regulator sold by Atkins rotary has all three. I know you guys suggest I try the new grounding cables but I have already ordered one just in case the grounding cables don't work .If the new regulator doesn't solve the issue I will parts cannon a new alternator , this one already charges low according to my cigarette lighter voltage meter. TLRD will the atkins regulator replace mine .

At this point in time even If i did have the cables I have no idea where they go or what to do .

The issue I have with this whole ordeal is the fact that the tach works on and off ( It worked just fine yesterday , then it rained hard this morning and the tach was being stupid). Before I changed my spark plugs the tach never gave me any issues and it's leading me to believe that maybe something may be wrong with the spark plugs or the fact The car cranked extensively with the plugs out when i was de flooding it just fried the voltage regulator or pushed an already weak alternator over the edge . I have already checked every cable disconnected and reconnected them with no change. My fuses seem fine as well. The car starts and runs fine. It's just the tach .

I don't feel comfortable driving the car around with the tach not working as I don't know if my coolant or oil levels are low and can't even tell what RPM I'm in, I have work on wed and my family is already upset I borrowed their cars this last week when the engine was flooded . I can't work on my car the days I work , by the time i get home it's dark out.

At this point I may just sell the car , I know I'm being dramatic but electric issues seem alien to me. I'm in a point in life where I honestly don't have the time or frankly the patience to learn how electricity works or how circuits work when I'm already spending 5+ hours of my day researching law for work related purposes and the stupid sun sets at 5 and rises at 6:45 and I leave home for work at 7:00. My girlfriend is pissed at me because i wasn't able to visit her for new years , I'm pissed I wont even be able to work on the car because I have no car to go buy cables when this car is down .. Ok now I'm ranting LOL. But really , This car has been incredibly reliable to me and fixing and replacing parts has never bothered me , but Electrical **** genuinely upsets me .

KansasCityREPU

iTrader: (9)

https://www.walmart.com/ip/EverStart...0&from=/search

You can get something similar from Amazon if you want it delivered and have an Amazon account.

KansasCityREPU

iTrader: (9)

Is the only problem now that the tach is randomly working?

Does the car shut down when this happens?

Frogman

just the tach .

KansasCityREPU

iTrader: (9)

This tells me there is either something wrong with the tach or the ignition system with the leading coil/ignitor where the tach gets its signal from the negative post of the leading coil. You say you converted from points to electronic or am I wrong?

1979 Wiring Diagram

Frogman

Prior owner converted it .
My tach stays as a voltmeter at all times .

My car did this when my alternator broke , I don't think it's the trailing plug since that controls RPM's when everything is working and when the tach does work it reads my RPMS just fine .

From all the reading I have done the voltage regulator is the one responsible for doing this transition .

The issue you are describing is no tach or erratic tach once the transition occurs .

When the alternator fails, from my understanding, it fails to charge and the lack of charge mens the GEN LIGHT comes on .

When the voltage regulator fails , the alternator is not allowed to complete its charge circuit .

We can rule out a faulty ignitor based on the fact , that when the car does switch over ( It has done it twice randomly yesterday), the tach works just fine . I think a failing ignitor would cause it to flip out at all times wouldn't it ?

Update : Bought a 6 gauge cable like the one in the picture , they didn't have 4 gauge ones .
Where do I hook the ends up?

KansasCityREPU

iTrader: (9)

One end of the negative cable needs to be attached to the negative battery terminal. You might need to get a longer bolt. The other end goes to the driver's side inner struct tower. There is a captured nut about midway down. You may need to supply a small bolt.

Frogman

The only bolt I see on the strut tower is where is where the fusible links are . I will take a picture .



Believe it or not the spark plug cables are under a year old.