Well, today my car decided to die. I went to start it up this morning and it started to shake violently... really violently (so much so that a person outside the car could see it shaking side to side). So, I shut her off cause it felt like it was about to shake apart and then I went to start her again and it wouldn't run. I was able to get it to turn over but, she just wouldn't start up. I'm really at a loss of where to start to try and fix it. I think the violent shaking was potentially caused by the spark plugs firing at the wrong times so, I checked all my wiring and replaced the plugs and made sure the distributer was set up correctly and everything checks out (or so it seems) but, it will not fire. Does anyone have any ideas and could anyone possibly come over and help me try to fix the problem? I'm getting desperate here seeing as my car is stuck in a parking lot in some condo's and will be towed if it sits there for another two days. If anyone could help me out I would greatly appreciate it. It's stuck in the southwest near bow trail. I'll buy a round of drinks for anyone that's willing to donate they're time an knowledge.

The car is an '84 GSL with a 12a engine.

Thanks guys.

 

That sucks man, you might have to change that winter project to a fall one. I would come help you but I would probably cause more problems then I would solve. Hope you get it back up and running for the next weekend.
Good Luck

 

ive seen a couple times now were a car shakes real bad from vac leaks. since you are carbed and not efi, check your intake where the gasket is, hopefully i could be something you can see. if you didnt touch your spark plugs and distruibutor before the problem, you can most likely rule them out. one small thing though, look in the distributor cap, is there 4 metal pcs in it? also on the spindle that stays on the shaft, if one breaks off i could see this being a prob

good luck

 

Could be running on one rotor due to o-ring failure, check the exhaust and the plugs for wet coolant..
Run it when its dark, look for spark from the wires to ground, bad wires are easy to spot at night along with cracked distributor caps..max

 

What part of town are you in??

 

ooops duh, the SW. PM me your number and we'll see about helping you out.

 

PM sent!


In the meantime here's an ubdate for everyone else.

I checked out the distributor brushes and connections in the cap and everything looks fine. It almost seems as if the lower spark plugs arent firing though... I mean, I can deflood the engine using the top two spark plugs but when I put the bottom two back in, they won't fire. (even replaced the plugs)

I checked the intake this morning and everything look fine (it may not be for all I know though). The plugs didn't have any coolant on them though. Just gasoline from engine flooding. Nothing in the exhaust either. I fired her up last night and was unable to see sparks arcing to the ground.

 

Sounds like an ignitor module. Leading is on the bottom I think? I always get the two mixed up.

 

Leading(Low)
Trailing(Top)

 

It could be a bad coil. Easy check is to swap the high-tension coil leads (the ones going to the distributor) at either end (but not both ends). Do the same two plugs fail to fire? if not, and the other two now fire you've narrowed your search. Either you have a bad coil or a bad connection to it or ground.

But if the same two plugs (lower, leading) still don't fire the coils are fine and your leading ignitor is suspect. I say leading, because if it were the trailing ignitor that failed the car would still run fine. But the tach wouldn't.

When my leading ignitor failed a month ago the car still ran (albiet, like **** and with reduced power) but would not idle below about 1300 rpm. Of course, I didn't flood mine so it still ran.

At this point I'd swap your ignitors around. This means use a phillips screwdriver to remove both of them from the side of the distributor and then re-install them with the leading ignitor (the one on the front of the dist.) mounted where the trailing one (mounted on the RH side of the dist, next to the alternator) used to be and vise-versa.
If the leading ignitor is the culprit the car will now run fine, but the tachometer won't work. (The tach picks up its signal from the trailing ignitor, but since the dead leading ignitor is now mounted in this location there is no signal for the tach to receive).

If the above does not solve your problem the ignitors are fine and the problem is elsewhere.

 

Still having issues?

I'm in the SW (Oakridge)

I'm @ school untill noon Thursday, send me a PM and I can drop by to see if I can lend a hand.

EDIT: I think I have a coil or 2 lying around the garage, and I'm pretty sure I've got an ignitor in the glove box

Ah the joys

 

Update:

Brett (84stock) came over last night and helped me take a look at it. The ignitors and coils are all good. I'm getting spark now but I don't appear to be getting any compression. I'm going to check up on my fuel lines and relubricate the rotors and see if I can get any compression back. Also, if anyone has a compression tester, I would love to borrow it to see just how much compression is actually in the chamber.

 

just pull one bottom plug at a time and crank it over (coils unplugged). You should hear 3 solid puffs out of each hole.

 

Uh, that was me, Aviator. 84stock's 1st gen is way nicer (and faster) than mine.

 

lol thats so redneck!

 

My bad... coherent internet thought isn't my strong point.

Still havnt had any luck at all fixing it... Im having it towed back to my place. I
ll likely be selling what's left of it, off.