40 ford no start

[zoegrant]

Hi to all,
Had my 40 ford running outside for it`s once a month run. I brought the car back in the garage and shut key off till next month start up which brings us to now.
Car wont start, battery fully charged, engine turns over freely, carb squirting gas, Coil putting out spark. I removed the external resistor and found that it had a broken internal wire. Installed new resistor and proceeded to pull distributor cap to check to see if points were
damaged in any way. All looked OK. STILL WON`T START.
Any ideas on what can be going on with this car ?

[JayChicago]

You said "coil putting out spark". How did you test that? Are you seeing good spark to ground at end of a spark plug lead?

[zoegrant]

I have. two cars that use the same coil and I swapped the one from the one car that does start to see if that was the problem, still no start

[Ken/Alabama]

If it’s getting a good spark at the plugs I’d pour a little gas down the carb and give it a try.

[drolston]

See if it will fire if you put a squirt of starting fluid down the carb. That stuff (ether) will fire on even a very weak spark and bad fuel/mixture. If it will start and keep running normally, fuel is not the problem. If it runs and dies, check the fuel level in the bowl. If that is proper, look into the ignition system.



When cranking, you should be able to get a blue/white spark jump about 3/8" at every plug wire end. Short or yellow spark? Replace the condenser with known good one. If that does not fix it, check the voltage at the coil when cranking. If it drops a lot when cranking, like below 4.5 volts, you may just need to clean all battery and ground connections. If that fails, the distributor must come off for a complete check.

[Ggmac]

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Have you just visited the gas station? Maybe you have water in the tank ?

[Terry,OH]

If the ignition resistor was open circuit (broken wire) there would be no spark.

[zoegrant]

i did try starting fluid and gas down the carb and the fuel bowl is full. No trips to gas station. I did install a new resistor as the other one was damaged.
I have not changed the condenser. I will try that next. Would the condenser prevent a no start condition or a start and stop condition ?

[zoegrant]

Is it possible that when I changed out the external coil resistor that I rewired it wrong ?
The resistor has only two male connections, one goes to ignition switch and one goes to the negative side of the coil. If they were reversed would it make any difference ?
Color coding of wires have no indication as the wire colors have been changed thru the years

[Ken/Alabama]

So you’re not using the original style coil. Is your car still 6 volt? If so you probably don’t need an external resistor with a modern round coil.

[deuce_roadster]

OP said good spark at plugs. Have the plugs been looked at to make sure they are not wet? Maybe it is just flooded.

[zoegrant]

car was converted to 12v....I will look at the plugs tomorrow.
Can the wires for the external resistor we switched to establish a no start situation ?

[drolston]

If you have a 12 volt coil, it should (disconnected from wires) measure 3.0 ohms internal resistance as measured between the + connected to the battery and the - connected to the distributor. No external resistor required.

[joe 1950]

you say you swapped coil from running car but take a test light and see if you have power at the coil

[Veeder]

This requires the distributor to be pulled off but I had the advance weights get stuck in the fully advanced mode. It would start but only with high rpm when cranking over.

[zoegrant]

ok, I cleaned and gapped the plugs as they were dirty, also used some starting fluid to no avail, still no start. The only thing I haven`t done is changed the gas, it is a year old with gas stabilizer in it.
I am leaning toward a distributor problem. I do have a friend that is a professional
mechanic but hated to ask him to check it out

[BUBBAS IGNITION]

condensor condensor condensor

[drolston]

These cars will start and run on crappy old gas, because that is what was sold, in the day.

[Gordon Ellis]

Concerning Bubba's response....condenser, condenser, condenser....


If you have a good spark at the plugs, it seems to me that the condenser must be fine. Am I wrong about that?

[JayChicago]

Originally Posted by Gordon Ellis

Concerning Bubba's response....condenser, condenser, condenser....
If you have a good spark at the plugs, it seems to me that the condenser must be fine. Am I wrong about that?

He never said he has good spark at the plugs. He just said in #1 that "coil putting out spark". Others on here assumed that meant good spark at the plugs. I doubt it. Chances are Bubba is right.