50 deg hard starting

[Barabbas]

It's been dry here for 36 hours so I thought I'd see if I could get Doris to start.

Opened the hood and everything looked dry except #1 sparkplug that had a fair amount of fluid in the well. I dried it out and noticed that it had a green tint; so I looked at all my hose connections and found nothing.

What the heck, I'll see if I can start her before doing a lot of diagnostics.

I manually set the choke on 1 carb and pumped once to set the fast idle.

I thought I would try the Don C method of starting that I found on an old post-short burst of cranking followed by 5 secs of waiting. She almost started on the first try. Almost on the second try. On the third try I got a little anxious and cranked for about 5 or 6 seconds. On the forth try--she fired alright;backfired--a 12 guage backfire. Two construction guys from across the street came over to see what happened.

We talked for a minute or two and I gave her a final try--started instantly.

We took an 80 mile cruise and she never missed a beat. When I got back I opened the hood and saw a little moisture on my Alternator, and a little on

my oil breather cap and SOME ON MY SPARKPLUG WIRES AND COIL WIRE. I finally found the source. The bolt that attached the water plug and alternator bracket to the block was loose, and antifreeze was leaking out the bolt hole and getting blown by the fan over all my connections on the driver side of the engine. I expect I'm due to replace all my sparkplug wires

Thanks to all for their suggestions---I will be checking out the distributor points and gap but I'm going to wait til the mercury rises a bit

[Barabbas]

It was a clear dry day yesterday--temps in the lower 30s; thought I'd go for a drive. But first I wanted to check out my point gap. The Gap was really small, down around .010 I'm guessing. I reset the gap to .020 and tried to start her.

Cranked well, gas flowed but no Spark.

I tired by passing the switch to the coil--still no spark.

Took off the dizzy gap to make sure I hadn't dislodged the connections to the condenser & points--verified continuity between the coil and the points. Tried to restart--no spark.

Hooked up my dwell meter and tried to measure dwell while cranking--needle didn't move? Rechecked gap -still at .020.

I've got some circuit chasing to do.

[JIPJOBXX]

Why don 't you just run a direct 6 volt line to your distributor and try that? By pass the voltage regulator but keep it hooked up!

[Don Coatney]

Why don 't you just run a direct 6 volt line to your distributor and try that? By pass the voltage regulator but keep it hooked up!

I dont think that would work. It might make the points spark OK but for the engine to run there must be power to the ignition side of the coil. The distributor then gets its 6 volt signal from the distributor side of the coil.

[Barabbas]

Well this is embarrassing

Took my trusty voltmeter out yesterday and checked the voltage across the coil primary--12.4v and then I started to crank the starter, the voltage dropped to 8.6v! I starting cleaning the connections and looked at my battery to ground wire-4ga:eek:. The first questions I was asked on this thread was "what gauge battery cables did I have" and my answer was 1 gauge. Well that was half right, I did have a 1-gauge ground cable but it was in a box in the trunk. I had intended to install larger cables when I did my 12 v conversion but must have forgot. Put the 1 gauge ground cable on and the voltage across the coil with the starter cranking was up to 10.2 volts. She started no problem. I hope I remember to buy a 1 gauge positive cable to lessen the voltage drop at starting even more.

I have a 12 volt system but still have the starter wound for 6v so I need the large cables just as much as a 6 volt system does. DOH!!