'77 460 won't start ...
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'77 460 won't start ...
I drove my truck home from work the other night and everything seemed to be running fine until I went to start it the next morning. It wouldn't start, no matter what I tried. Nothing's changed on it as far as plug wires or timing and it just got a brand new intake gasket installed. I've spent the last two days checking and rechecking everything from wires to gaskets to you name it and everything appears fine.
Any ideas on why this truck would just up and "die" on me like this?
Recently it had a valley pan installed that was for a '77 460 and later I found out that the engine is really a '71 so it went three days with the wrong intake gasket set up which threw water into the oil. I've drained the sludge from it, gave it a new filter and have a can of motor flush sitting by ready to go in if I can ever get it started.
Could the valley pan/water incident have caused something internal?
It doesn't sound like the crankshafts broken when I try and start it.
Oh, and it cranks just fine and on occassion it kicks like it's going to start but then it just semi backfires (pfft sound) through the carb. and dies.
Any ideas on why this truck would just up and "die" on me like this?
Recently it had a valley pan installed that was for a '77 460 and later I found out that the engine is really a '71 so it went three days with the wrong intake gasket set up which threw water into the oil. I've drained the sludge from it, gave it a new filter and have a can of motor flush sitting by ready to go in if I can ever get it started.
Could the valley pan/water incident have caused something internal?
It doesn't sound like the crankshafts broken when I try and start it.
Oh, and it cranks just fine and on occassion it kicks like it's going to start but then it just semi backfires (pfft sound) through the carb. and dies.
Last edited by 1977_250_460_C6; Nov 29, 2004 at 11:12 PM.
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Sounds like the timing chain jumped a tooth. Pretty common on high mileage 460's, and it usually happens when you shut off the engine. Pull up to the store and it's fine, come out and it won't crank. Good opportunity to swap to an early chain and recover some lost HP.
Brad
Brad
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would that happen with timing gears as well? The stock timing chain was replaced with a gear system prior to me buying the truck.
The good news is I finally got it started by playing around with the ignition system and cleaning it all up, but now that everythings sealed up and sparking good, my radiator's sprung a leak ... Did the '71 460s come complete with a resident gremlin? (LOL)
The good news is I finally got it started by playing around with the ignition system and cleaning it all up, but now that everythings sealed up and sparking good, my radiator's sprung a leak ... Did the '71 460s come complete with a resident gremlin? (LOL)
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It lives!!!!
LOL I finally got the beast running by tearing down my distributor and cleaning everything up really well. Going as far as to even sand down the rotor bug so that it was brass again. I scraped the contacts on the inside of the cap to rid it of any build up and cleaned it out really well and finally pulled all the wires, checked them with my multitester to make sure they were all good, gave them a good cleaning and reassembled it.
Then I advanced my timing all the way up and gave her a cranking, It coughed and sputtered the first three times and I was heading to grab my hammer when I tried a fourth and she fired right up.
I backed the timing down considerably after that without any problems, reset the RPM and took it for a spin. when I got back I looked down and saw that my temp gauge was reading almost 280! and while I was out I noticed that my brake pressure is non existant. Turns out that my radiator sprung a leak now that the pressure is back and am still wondering about those brakes. Hopefully nothing more that a good bleeding won't take care of, but knowing this truck .....
Then I advanced my timing all the way up and gave her a cranking, It coughed and sputtered the first three times and I was heading to grab my hammer when I tried a fourth and she fired right up.
I backed the timing down considerably after that without any problems, reset the RPM and took it for a spin. when I got back I looked down and saw that my temp gauge was reading almost 280! and while I was out I noticed that my brake pressure is non existant. Turns out that my radiator sprung a leak now that the pressure is back and am still wondering about those brakes. Hopefully nothing more that a good bleeding won't take care of, but knowing this truck .....
