Howdy folks,

I finally got through with my alternator woes. I swapped out the old for an upgraded 1-wire system. The problem that I'm running into now is that the truck turns over, but it won't start. I can see fuel in the filter and smell it as it's trying to start. The plugs and plug wires are also new. The choke is holding the butterfly at the 1/8 in. gap when cold, sometimes completely closed. The truck does stay in the garage, so I don't know if that needs adjusting or not. I just can't figure out why it was starting before the alternator issue and now it's not. Thanks for any assistance!

 

First what are we working on?
Year, motor any mods other than the 1 wire ALT (that I dont call an upgrade but thats me)

If you are smelling gas maybe it is flooded and the choke needs to be propped open with a screw driver?
Beside gas and the motor spinning are normal speed, it is spinning at normal speed?
You need spark did you check for spark and if so how did you do it?
Dave ----

 

Hi Dave,

It's a 73 F250 with a 360, 2 bbl carb. All stock engine... nothing fancy. I do smell a bit of gas. Admittedly, I did fiddle with the choke a few days ago. I suspect that might be the problem, but I don't have a lot of working knowledge of electric chokes. I think the motor is turning over at normal speed, but I'm not pushing to too hard so I don't burn out the starter. Prior to this issue, I replaced the plugs and wire. I tested each one and was getting good spark. Thanks!

Joe

 

By the time you smell gas, there’s already a lot in the intake manifold. Could literally be flooded, but we don’t know that yet.
Best thing to do in that situation is open the throttle all the way and hold it there while you crank the starter. Don’t pump it, don’t open and close it, just hold it open.
Then, when the engine does finally fire (assuming it does) you can let the gas pedal back off to a normal level.

I’ve seen a tendency for a lot of people with these older vehicles to worry over much about burning out a starter. By that I mean, they literally only turned the key to start for a second or two before they let off.
Often as not with these old vehicles, that’s just too damn short of a time. Let the starter do its job.
You can literally move a truck with a starter motor if it’s got a manual transmission. They are meant to be used,
And if it does burn out a starter just cranking for a few seconds, the starter was on its way out anyway. And if it overheats a starter or battery cable, they were too small.
I’ve literally cranked a starter for 30 seconds and not had a problem. Although I would typically use 15 seconds as a recommended guide. That just is a allowing for a big safety factor.
Otherwise they can handle quite a bit more than you think.
i’ve heard that concern for as long as I’ve been paying attention to vehicles. Heard grown-ups utter it when I was a kid. But even those that were concerned about it would easily let the starter crank for 15 or 20 seconds when a vehicle was being a little recalcitrant.

Did you mess with ignition timing at all?
No matter what, give that full pedal application trick a try.
And don’t be shy with the starter!

 

Lets back up to the 1 wire alternator swap, has it started just fine, idled, ran and drove down the road and charged the battery, since you did the swap? If that is a yes then check for spark, then check fuel pump for proper operation.

Take the line off the in port of the carb, turn over the truck (with the key), does is spit gas out the line on a normal turn over cycle?

 

When you were trying to start it did it even try to fire up?
If not I would recheck for spark at the coil wire to ground.
It should be blue in color and hear it snap.
Then check at a plug wire end or 2 to make sure the spark is getting to the plugs.

Being a 73 I am guessing it still has points?
If so you may want to take fine sand paper like 600 grit and run it thru them to clean them as they get a funk from sitting.
Dave ----

 

With the help of a friend, we figured out that it was an ignition issue. Some part of the old wire harness played a role in the coil pushing spark to start the engine. My friend recommended I find a source that has power when the key in on and run it the positive of the ignition coil. The photos show the work. Another friend of mine also mentioned that I need to be careful how I run the power wire to the coil on a point system. He said it has full power in start position mode, and it goes to a ballast in run mode, so I don't burn up my points. Can anyone tell me from the pics if I run the risk with this setup? Once I did this the truck fired right up. The new alt is pushing 14.ish volts while running, so I'm all set there... I just need to know if this wire setup will work, or do I risk burning up my points? Thank for the advice everyone! I appreciate it!

 

Without a ballast resistor of some sort in the hot lead to the coil in "run" mode, you do stand the risk of burning up the points. Fords use resistor wire from the ignition switch to the coil, which is temporarily bypassed when they switch is in "start" mode. GM and Mopar use physical ballast resistors in the line.

 

Thanks 73explorer... here's a question for you. My friend mentioned to me that because the distributor has a condenser inside, that would take up any excess juice from the coil and protect the points... what do ya think?
Thanks again!

 

Your friend is mistaken. The condenser is there to maintain the average voltage level which changes due to the opening and closing of the points. You must have some kind of ballast resistance in the circuit. In our trucks, Ford used resistance wire from the ignition switch to the coil.

Instead of applying a haywired Band-Aid to the problem, I highly recommend that you troubleshoot and correct the problem. Do you have the electrical diagrams for your truck? You will need them to troubleshoot. I have them but in electronic form. I may be able to snag screen captures and send them to you. If you're not capable of diagnosing electrical problems (and don't be ashamed because there's nothing wrong with that!) then you probably need to find a competent mechanic to do it. But first, let's see what the FTE Brain Trust can do to help. It would be helpful to know exactly what the symptoms are, what measurements you took, what connections you checked, and so on. We should be able to help narrow down the problem, which will make it easier to correct.

Have you considered replacing the points and condenser with a Pertronix Ignitor? I have them in my '73 F100 (360-2V) and my '72 Mustang. Some minor additional wiring and parts will be required, but we can help with that.

 

So I would have to look at my truck again to remember how i wired it when I did a one wire, but I kept the regulator wiring in place ( I generally try to keep things around and zip tie them up instead of hacking the harness up) but I just used an existing terminal to attach to my one wire alternator, the stock regulator also has an ignition wire for starting going to the coil I believe. You shouldn't have to find a new source for your coil though when you figure that out.

This is for a 74, but look at the GR-R wire coming from the regulator https://www.fordification.net/tech/i...aster_2of8.jpg

 

Thanks for the great advice 73explorer… here’s what I have so far from the start. I began having trouble with my old alternator, so I got a refurb’d one, but for whatever reason I couldn’t get it to push any power to the battery. I even swapped out my external reg to see if that was the issue. Nothing. After a bunch of hoopla, I decided to go to a one wire alt. Setup was simple enough. I removed the old wire harness, and voltage reg during the install. The issue afterwards was now the truck didn’t want to start. It would turn over just fine, but not fire. This is where my friend suggested what I mentioned above. She believes that I must have removed something from the old wire harness that had some bearing on ignition coil.
Admittedly, I do not have the greatest knowledge in the electrical department, so any assistance you can offer is greatly appreciated.

Thanks again for the sound advice!

Joe

 

Thanks for the link beardedcap!

 

So apparently what I did on mine(76) was hook my black/red battery wire from the stock wiring to the 1 wire alternator terminal. I suck at reading wiring diagrams, but if I understand it right it, it just goes to the battery anyway/ignition/coil anyway so I don't see any issue with me having the regulator and the rest of the harness still intact as it's not doing anything. I'm sure someone will explain why that's dumb. The little dinky gauge wire is probably not the best.

 

Howdy 73explorer.

I went back and did some research in my maintenance manual. I found the wire that contained the resistor wire... the big pink wire. That's the one I connected to. I volt tested at the positive terminal on the coil with key on... it read 6.3V. I then had a friend fire up the motor. The volts jumped to 11ish and then came right back down to around 6. From what I read this is how things are meant to operate, so I think I may have just gotten lucky with the wire I chose to connect to?
I know there are a lot of folks out there a lot smarter than me, so please tell me if I'm mistaken. Electical systems have never been my strong point, but I'm more than willing to learn.

Thanks!!