Manager Forum

Alright, we have a new problem. Got the car running,(kind of), had weak spark, and one bad plug, and corroded wire at the distributor cap. So I am trying to test now, because I have no spark. I don't remember off the top of my head how to narrow down of it is the pickup coil or the ignition brain box on this thing. I'm sure there are some of you experienced techs out there that can rattle off the proper way to test this. I have power at coil and it does not flash on coil negative, lights but no flash. I have power at white wire to ignition box KOEO, and power at red/blue while cranking. I think it may be the orange wire that I have to check, but it has been a while and since the car was built 3 years after I was born, I haven't worked on alot of them. Is the an ac voltage I can look for coming out of the pickup coil? If so what color wires do I need to hook to?? Thank you!

The best I remember the wires are purple and orange. The connector out of the dist has three wires one is black, the other two are what you need to check and look for a/c voltage while cranking.

there is no break or impulse to the coil. if i remember correctly the % of box to pick up issues are 10 to 1. i usually found the issue to be the box or the plug at the distributor. on a few rare occasions i ran into issues where the ground wire at the data kink had rotted inside the plug causing a weak or no spark. it feeds through the plug to ground. i believe it's double white wire. another quick tip here is if you decide to order a brain box i would suggest you order by the insulator color where that harness enters the box.

Is it a dura-spark system? I'm having trouble remembering also. Thats the only benefit to dementia.

brain box? isn't that a red neck hat? oh, wait a minute, that's a brain bucket.....

Lil joe you are correct, the wires are purple and orange, for future reference! Had signal to brain box, guess what bad box! My girlfriend and a buddy thought I was joking around when I grabbed the modis and took it to the Mustang to hook up. My buddy says jokingly "I didn't know they had diagnostic connectors back then!" They were both amazed when I showed them that the Modis is more than a scanner. 20 years of this car sitting are showing. Plug wires were corroded on the distributor cap, so complete tune up. Carburator was seized, brakes were all siezed. Now after getting it running, the rack is leaking, has a oil leak from rear of engine (guess what that is). I think I put this project on hold till the old man gets back from Arizona. His bill is high enough already.

be real careful how you maintain the cash flow. don't allow the customer to leave you in the lurch when or if he decided to pull the plug on the project.