Holy $h*t Greaser007, I read your post with tears running down my cheeks while fully and completely feeling every ounce of your pain and frustration! Thanks for the psychological booster!

Good thought about the voltage regulator. I replaced the OEM with a NAPA solid state regulator in the past couple of years or so. The last I checked it was putting out 14.7v but I’ll check again, it’s been awhile.

Glad ya got the wheel off your yard art, and that’s a NICE Chateau!

 

Just… oh… I don’t know what I don’t know. What a big waste of time…. FWIW it’s another lesson learned. Sorry it was on your time… 🙄

On a related topic, Hank called today. He told me he’d asked you if he could be your “goon”, your enforcer per se, to “convince” me to get off my a$$ and replace the dead (no longer just dying) battery.

After he and I talked the path was clear: replace it “or else”. I don’t even want to think about the “or else” or consider what that could even mean.

There is now a shiny brand new O’Reilly’s 750 CCA 3-year warranty top post mount dc power holder under the hood. FFS! 😅

 

Now you're taking a turn at leaving us on a cliff hanger !! LOL

Well done for getting a new battery, but you have to let us know, did it solve the issue, or does the stator need changing too ?

I read 14.6v on my voltmeter when I got a new battery, then observed 14.1v over the last few months, and then 13.9v this morning.

I'll be getting a new battery this week, rather than waiting a few months and hitting possible issues.

I didn't realize that the battery is already 4 1/2 years old. Yikes time flies fast.

We definitely had some time wasting issues, but I'd say the entire project thus far has not been a waste of time.

Once the vacuum advance issue is truly sorted, I'm going to ask you to do a handful of quick 'n easy voltage readings which you should find interesting, and will put a few things into context. (I hope.)

Aha ! I didn't realize that you were still in contact with Hank, but again, your secret's safe here.

There's no way I was ever going to relive 'those old days' and that's why I changed my number and email address.

He must have called Greaser007. LOL

Here's my response to you figuring out the 12v, 6v, 12v, 6v issue : https://giphy.com/gifs/ussoccer-danc...OpJRJMhRPGqUsE

 

No cliffhanger intended. I didn’t even turn the key until I knew I had time to play, which I didn’t at the time. Hopefully today.

 

I have no more finger nails to bite.

Before you fire it up, please measure the following voltages :

Ignition off, battery voltage. (Yeah, I know it's new and should be +/- 12.6v)

Ignition on : battery voltage again, then MM + to coil + like last time, then MM+ to coil + with the green wire detached.

This will tell us how much voltage is lost from the battery to the coil.

It will be interesting to see if the 5.95v reading increases.

Fingers crossed.

 

New battery 12.5v cold. Set rotor at 12* BTDC mark on the balancer. Started right up, big stumbles, misfires. Firing order? Not backfiring or coughing.

Check firing order and all HT lead connections. All OK. Scratching head, muttering under my breath.

Replace NAPA stator with Standard Ignition that the engine had run well on, briefly. No change this time, will not run.

My eyes fall in the carb. $h*t! When and how did the choke get closed??

Started, will idle but timing is WAY advanced, 55*! Here we go again. Swing dizzy back to 16* and guess what, it pops and backfires with vac advance.

I gathered some voltage readings while it was idling:
Battery 14.6 v
Coil + jumps all around, approximately 6-12v, 11v seems predominant
Coil - jumps around from OL to 8.99
Across coil jumps around, 2-5.5v, 5v seems predominant

I also captured the cold voltages asked for:
Battery 12.6v no load, 12.3v in Run
Coil + 5.97v
Coil + with green disconnected 12.28v
Across studs all wires connected 4.53v

Too damn weird…

 

Tooooooooooooooooooooooouch dooooooooooooooooooooown Gooooooooooooooooo Seahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawks



I've been itching to say those four words for ages.

One hell of a game.

All we have to do now is consider the injured player.

 

There were two reasons for getting the new battery.

First one was that the old one was dead, or near death, and needed replacing anyway.

The second was to rule out the possibility of a near dead battery causing havoc with sensitive electronics. (Or not pushing enough power as observed by the guy in the Bronco thread.)

The true voltage drop in the battery + to the coil + circuit is 0.3v which is very acceptable.

The injured player is the pickup. (We probably already knew that back in post 162 on page 11. LOL)

Did you ever come across a pin like this ? :




Assuming yes to that last question :

Do you think Napa would give you a credit for the pickups you bought from them ?

If yes, maybe try the more expensive Echlin one.

Maybe try a Wells pickup, which also shows that pin :




Everything else has been tested and confirmed :




Personally I'd get a you know what and end up with this :




I can't think of anything else to add.

 

I take it you are convinced it’s another pickup that is bad. I’m not although I don’t have another explanation.

Here’s why. I’ve tested 4 pickups (2 Standard Ignition, 1 Master Pro and 1 NAPA).

The first SI is the one I had cut the female plug to wire-in bullet connectors since the male plug had been cut from the engine harness. Engine did not run with vac advance even though the pickup ohms were within tolerance.

The second SI pickup is the same one that is in the dizzy now as I write this. It’s been installed twice. The first time I installed it with temp wires from the pickup’s female plug to the harness bullet connectors and the engine suddenly ran with vac advance. I was able to test drive with vac advance connected not just to ported but manifold vacuum without issue. However after I got home and shut it off it reverted back to no running with vac advance and has not since then. This pickup’s ohms are also within tolerance.

Next I tried the Master Pro. Cheap piece of crap IMHO. And it didn’t fix the problem either.

So I bought the NAPA pickup. The engine would not run with it installed and this is about the time we went on the pig trail hunt for a suspected gremlin in the wiring for 6v power. We know how that turned out 😒. User error. Anyway that leads us up to yesterday when I tried starting the engine but it wouldn’t stay running. I blamed it on the NAPA pickup and changed it out, back to the SI that is installed now. And it won’t run on vac advance even though it did at one time with this specific pickup and ohms on all pickups (SI, MP and NAPA) are in tolerance.

Notably I discovered the closed choke after changing-out the NAPA part so the NAPA has not been tested under real working conditions.

It seems to me I have an either-or problem. Either I have gotten 4 defective pickups from 3 different manufacturers which seems unlikely, or there is some type of other fault in the system. Given the current SI pickup worked for a short while, I am leaning towards there being an undiscovered fault: something that is either causing a good and functioning pickup to function improperly, or is actually killing pickups. The fact the ohms on all pickups are good both before and after install is another reason I think there is something else going on. I’m at a loss right now as to what that could possibly be.

Still down but not out.

 

I just tried to get out and leave the game early, but a mean looking huge bouncer stopped me in my tracks.

I offered him a bribe to let me out, but he just growled and pointed towards my seat.

Thinking about it now, I don't think the $2 bribe was enough.

Here's what we know already :

The + wiring in the ignition circuit works.

The coil and ICM work.

Ohms and voltage readings are all within spec.

The engine ran 100% fault free during a drive.

The pin referred to earlier, locks the reluctor in place. The pickup base gets locked into place. The ground wire gets locked into place.

Here's what we don't know :

All those dizzy bits get locked into place, so why the f$$k did someone go to all the trouble of explaining/drawing the alignment as shown in page 2 of the attached ?

As discussed already, the vac adv will move the reluctor out of alignment anyway !!! (I think the alignment is a crock of sh$t.)

Why will Go Seahawks! not throw away this crap system and get an HEI which is easier to setup and provides a neat spaghetti free engine bay ? LOL

Why did the 100% fault free pickup work, and then stop working ?

Why does the idle timing move when the only thing being changed is the pickup ? (The dizzy and rotor aren't moved at all !!)

Yes, I'm convinced that the pickups are bad, even though one worked for a while.

Read the link below again. It's just too similar to your experience. I've read so many threads like this one over the years. Not sure why I still gave a generous benefit of the doubt.

This sounds dumb, and I can't remember if we did it already, but does the MM+ to battery + and MM - to ICM case read 12.6v ?
Likewise to the dizzy face ?

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...ls-engine.html

 

For full disclosure and clarity, in my last post I mentioned a Master Pro pickup at the beginning but didn’t originally include it in the subsequent sequence of events. I just edited that post to include it.

 

I remember all 4 pickups.

You made a very good point about the pickups being within spec both before and after installation.

The engine runs 100% with each one, right up until the vac adv is connected. (Which moves the stator alignment. No more and no less.)

Now that you've fixed the carb issue (LOL), by all means try the NAPA one.

When it doesn't work, try an exchange.

I'm thinking that the Napa one is actually an SI one with the Napa name, but maybe I'm thinking crap.

Given that both the coil and dizzy are grounded to the ICM, wouldn't it be great if you found that the ICM wasn't grounded properly. Yeah, LOL, wishful thinking.

 

We are on the same page. I came around with the thread you linked above about the 74 F100 with the exact same issue. I had seen it before during my research, too. In fact this is where I had previously seen the term “out of phase” and incorrectly attributed it to the Bronco thread where “phase” was also used. Interesting.

I was resisting the thought of it continuing to be a bad pickup for all the reasons I stated. However post 8 (bad pickup had 600 ohms indicating good), post 9 (out of phase), and post 10 (significant timing differences with good and bad pickups (that I’ve also seen and commented on); and the bad pickup was a Standard Ignition LX204, and I’ve had 2 of them).

Wouldn’t it be something if the pickup turns out to be the final answer after all?

I will verify ICM ground for good measure.

For good luck:
https://giphy.com/gifs/ussoccer-danc...OpJRJMhRPGqUsE

 

LOL. Mr Happy Dance Man continues to make me giggle.

The good news is that you can drive around 100% fault free, albeit with no vac adv connected, and that couldn't be done a month or so ago.

Let's say you finally get a pickup that works. What happens next time and how long will it last ?

And there's still the little matter of obtaining 10L timing limiters.

I don't know if a $150 HEI dizzy will fit your engine. (I have an air gap manifold and carb spacer which creates lotsa space.)

I suppose it's easy enough to find out.

A $300 coil/dizzy combo is twice the price to do the same job.

Did you put a PCV breather on your shopping list ?

I think you've worked it out by now that your alternator and voltage regulator are working just fine. (Just saying.)

I'm off to bed now and will no doubt be dreaming about your bloody ignition system. LOL

 

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