Waking the car up from a nap

[OverlandMan]

Double check the connections are where they should be on the ballast resistor and the ignition coil under the bulkhead cover. Not underestimating your abilities, Jeff, just thinking of an oversight I made not long ago. I got checking connections and cleaning up the area and flat out left one of the ignition coil wires unplugged initially. Might be as simple as one of the connections isn't right. Post a pic or two of those two areas if you want someone else to look it over for you online.

Fair enough. Here's a couple of pics of both area. Keep in mind, the only thing I disconnected and reconnected was the ignition coil. I have not touched the ballast resistor. I was pretty careful to make sure I reconnected the coil the same way I disconnected but there's always a possibility of screwing-up.

IMG_0250.jpg IMG_0251.jpg

[DMC5180]

Did you wiggle the wire terminals on the ballast resistor? Pull them off and reconnect so they make a fresh scratch connection.

[Jonathan]

Nothing in those pics jumps out at me Jeff. One thing possibly could be the centre wire connection into the ignition coil isn't clipped down all the way. Not likely perhaps, but I don't see anything else.

[David T]

Nothing in those pics jumps out at me Jeff. One thing possibly could be the centre wire connection into the ignition coil isn't clipped down all the way. Not likely perhaps, but I don't see anything else.

Another quick way to see if it is fuel or ignition is to try squirting a little bit of Ether in and if that keeps it running, even a little bit longer, it tells you it is a fuel problem. For wiring diaphragms on the ignition circuit check out M:18:01, :02, :03 and :04 in the Workshop Manual. The place to start would be to make sure there is battery voltage on the white wire at the ballast resistor when the ignition key is on. M:18:04

[OverlandMan]

Talked to Dave @ DMCMW on the phone Tuesday evening. He recommended bypassing the ballast resistor (temporarily for testing purposes only) and jumping 12V straight from the (+) jump terminal to the (+) side of the coil, which I did. This didn't seem to change anything. He also mentioned reading through the resistor with a meter. As luck would have it, my 15 year old Blue-Point multi-meter died on me so I'm in the process of replacing that. No reading yet but that's where I am with it.

I did notice a fairly crispy looking white wire on the opposite side of the coil. I'll see about fixing that this weekend. That may be yielding a poor connection and causing some trouble. I haven't thoroughly investigated the connections on the ballast resistor yet but certainly will as well at the same time and correct as necessary.

I've been traveling the past couple of days but should have some time to work on it this weekend.

BTW - the folks @ DMCMW are fantastic!

[OverlandMan]

Alright, so here's where I am currently.

I cleaned all the electrical terminal connections on the coil and ballast resistor. Some of them were pretty cruddy looking. This didn't seem to change anything. I then decided to push the air plate down at least 3/4 of the travel and try again. This seemed to do the trick as a few more tries starting and it finally would run without dying.

Success! Kinda... now my problem is a bad miss and generally running like crap. I'm going to try and post a video on this thread later today or tomorrow. I'm thinking another flow test is probably in order to make sure I don't have a stuck injector or two. The spark plugs and wires were all replaced within the last 12 months and the connections there all seem fine.

I'm thinking the only other thing would be the fuel distributor. I did have a stuck plunger a couple of months back.

[David T]

Alright, so here's where I am currently.

I cleaned all the electrical terminal connections on the coil and ballast resistor. Some of them were pretty cruddy looking. This didn't seem to change anything. I then decided to push the air plate down at least 3/4 of the travel and try again. This seemed to do the trick as a few more tries starting and it finally would run without dying.

Success! Kinda... now my problem is a bad miss and generally running like crap. I'm going to try and post a video on this thread later today or tomorrow. I'm thinking another flow test is probably in order to make sure I don't have a stuck injector or two. The spark plugs and wires were all replaced within the last 12 months and the connections there all seem fine.

I'm thinking the only other thing would be the fuel distributor. I did have a stuck plunger a couple of months back.

Yes, the next step would be to check that all of the injectors are passing the same volume of fuel and each has a proper spray pattern. If you had a stuck plunger you probably should have the injectors cleaned and tested.

[OverlandMan]

Yes, the next step would be to check that all of the injectors are passing the same volume of fuel and each has a proper spray pattern. If you had a stuck plunger you probably should have the injectors cleaned and tested.

I did a flow test a while back but that was before I cleaned the tank and replaced all the tank components (several months). A couple of the injectors weren't spraying the same as the other 4 (less volume). I soaked them in Berryman's for several days and blew compressed air through them before re-testing and re-installing.

Seems like I recall hearing from one or more vendors back when that you can't really clean injectors. If they were cheaper, I'd just replace them all and be done with it.

http://dmctx.blogspot.com/2015/04/en...witch-fix.html