I'm getting an '86 back on the road that I recently bought for my brother. I was told that the car was only parked for a little over a year, but I'm fairly convinced the guy was lying through his teeth since the inspection sticker expired in '03 and the gas tank had more varnish in it than I've ever seen... around two gallons of goo after it was seperated from the old gas.

Anyway, it was firing fine (and had no problem running on starter fluid), but wouldn't burn the gas. After getting the gas problem fixed and the pump replaced, it fired for a couple seconds and then stopped. Now I have no spark--sort of. When I turn the key, the leading coil will fire a single time, then play dead for the remaining cranks. As soon as I turn the key again, I again get a single spark from each, then nothing. The trailing coils are completely asleep.

No fuses look blown, I've tried swapping the ECU, and I don't see any loose wires or connections. I'm completely stumped, especially since everything seemed perfectly fine up until the gas was replaced. Any ideas?

 

Get new spark plugs?
Old gas could've "killed" your current set of spark plugs...


-Ted

 

Plugs are brand new. Testing for spark was done with a fifth plug that never saw the inside of the motor.

 

Well, this is frightening. It's never a good thing when the 7 Club shrugs its shoulders. I had this problem on a Porsche of mine--turn the key and only get a single spark, and after ripping my hair out it turned out to be a reference mark sensor. The spark was the result of the coil being initially energized, and the lack of spark following was because the ecu couldn't see the crank was spinning.

So the counterpart on the FC would be the crank angle sensor, might as well try replacing that...