A no spark

[Dickybird]

Just purchased a 31 A pick up. Haven't run for 20 yrs. changed oil, new liquid in rad ,New gasoline,new batt.motor turned over but not start. No spark at plugs and at coil..what do I check?

[Drive Shaft Dave]

Check the points gap .022, run a piece of sandpaper between them, 6volts at the movable point when open.

[Bill G]

There are only three components, excluding the connecting wires, that produce spark. The points and the condenser which are located in the distributor body, and the coil. Points could be "frozen" open or shut, condenser could be shorted out, or the coil could be shot. Any of which could happen after being stored for 20 years. The good news is that any or all of these items are not expensive, and the points and condenser should probably be changed out anyway after being stored for that long. There is a member of this forum, Jack Bahm that has a You-tube channel on Model A's. It seems to me that I saw a video by him on how to bench test each of the components. You can probably find a lot of discussion by searching past posts on the forum.

[Tom Wesenberg]

I wouldn't change a thing unless it's broken. It might be you only need to clean the oxidation off the points, or it might be stripped teeth on the cam gear from trying to push stuck lifters up.

First hand crank the engine to see if the rotor goes around and to check for compression on each cylinder. If that's good, then stop the engine with the points open, hold the coil wire 1/4" from a head nut, turn the key on and short the points with a screwdriver to see if you get a hot blue spark. If you do, then clean the points contacts and check for spark again.

On my 1939 motorbike I had to clean the points a dozen times before I finally had good consistent spark.

[1930-Pickup]

I installed a NOS Blue Streak point set once that looked great, but I couldn't get a spark from the system. Once I cleaned those very nice looking points, it ran fine.

[Welshmtnroadster]

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I had the same problem ....just put this body together....I retraced all the wires and I had the yellow wire and the yellow w black tracer wire reversed at back of amperes gauge. ....not sure if you fooled with wires, but after I reversed them I had spark and started right up! Just a thought....if your in the car looking at the gauge....yellow w black should be on right..

[Synchro909]

After 20 years in storage, my first thought was corrosion on the points. As has been suggested above, check for that and clean them if you find they don't make contact.
Please let us know how you go.