[Mgs] Won't start

Monte Jane Morris montejane at gmail.com
Tue May 28 20:01:24 MDT 2013


Mystery solved!

Original problem:
Drove car 15 miles, ran great. Shut it off and it didn't want to start (it
always starts right up). Got it started and drove home; car ran great for
the 8 miles home. Shut it off in the garage and it wouldn't start. That was
in February. I've been trying to trace the problem off and on since. I
replaced the coil and ballast resistor and Paul helped me fix the wiring
problem I created when I replaced the original OPUS/electronic ignition
with a 45D points dizzy many years back. I also replaced the ground wire in
the distributor.  I was getting a spark at the points when I separated them
with a screwdriver, but I still wasn't getting fire to the plugs. I could
see the points were opening and closing from above and I thought that I had
gotten a piece of sandpaper all the way through the points to clean them.
Finally, after  removing the distributor for closer inspection I found a
small "pip" at the bottom of the points and a groove it fit in on the
other. It must have not been letting a spark form.
After replacing the points and condenser, it fired up on the first "crank".
I'm sure any mechanic that would have looked under the hood would probably
have diagnosed the problem within a few minutes. It took me a little
longer:)

Thanks to all who offered advice with this.

Monte, 79B with HIF's


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