Tune up gone wrong!

Hello all,

Okay so I have 63 Falcon Ranchero with the 260 and auto trans the car is stock. I finally got it on the road last week for the first time in 20 years. Well after getting it running using the old stuff on the car. Today I went in and replaced the cap, rotor, wires and plugs and now I get absolutely no spark. I have tried like hell to troubleshoot it. I cannot figure out what I did. I even put all the old kit back on. Nothing.

I have power at the Ignition coil. But nothing is firing to the sparklers. Any help would be great. I know it is something stupid.

Check your points and condenser

Thanks Doug! I switched points out for new electronic ignition. Running strong again.

Marty

Okay, so I am now back to square one. I installed the electronic ignition in the distributor, it ran for a week and now it will not run.


New stuff:
Starter
Ignition Solenoid
ignition coil
Pertronixs 1281
Wires
Cap
Rotor

Measurements;
Ignition system resistance 2.8 Ohms measured from Negative post of coil to positive battery cable with key on.
12 v measured at Positive coil Terminal with key in on position
Tested the coil 1.8 ohms Primary, 10.5K ohms secondary.
Ground in Distributor is good.

Behavior:
Starter turns motor over using the key.
Has fuel in carb

Any help would be great.

A bit late maybe, spotted iyour post just now
These come to mind:
Is your timing still on? Mine slipped because the hold down clamp was not secure enough, gave me lots of trouble before I found out.
Fuel in carb, but is it getting in the engine?
Timing correct and checked the timing marks on the harmonic balancer are still good?
Correct choke setting?
Does the accelerator pump work?
Are the high power wires attached correctly. I found out my pertronix set didn't went in all the way in the cap, resulting in melted terminal ends (arching) and very bad running and stalling in wet weather.
Clogged up fuel filter?
Fuel pump stil ok?
Ground to the engine ok?

Hope you already found the issue, if so, please share for others to learn.

Good luck,
Rinke

So here is the update to the tune up gone wrong.

Ultimately, I found the issue thanks to a lead from Pertronix. The coil wasn't firing during start up. The cause of this came down to the voltage drop on the coil during cranking. I was only getting 6 volts while cranking, even after removing the resistor wire. I was getting 12 volts with the ignition turned on which confused me.

But, after speaking to Pertronix they insisted that ignitor module was good and sent me additional test procedures that identified the drop.


Once I found this issue. It took basically a new starter and cleaning all the connections and grounds in the starting system.



Timing is still an issue for me. For some reason my harmonic balancer has no timing marks. So that made setting timing a pain.

Marty

If the car suddenly "dies" and shows no signs of life, then very often the cause is the lack of contact on the wires and ground connections. Since there is more than one ground point in the car, you should first clean all of them of oxide, and then, if that does not help, carry out further diagnostics of the electrical system.

If your timing marks are gone you could try to tune with a vacuum gauge.