Ugggh, I’m lost in this world of GM “innovation”…from the 70’s. Day 2 of no-spark condition, think I’ve got it narrowed down to some combination of a 4-part problem.
A) A possible “Missing” wire going to the Ignition Coil on the +ve side (from the Starter solenoid?) I have faith that the new coil is nto defective out of the box, but currently it’s only getting 5-6V to it from the Toyota Tach wires. My limited research today tells me that I need 5-6V in RUN, and 12V in CRANK positions of the ignition, just a little extra juice while cranking.
B) Distributor needs points cleaned up /gap set / replaced. (Steve had suggested swapping in an HEI distributor, but I’m not sure if it’ll clear the firewall)
C) Old crunchy wires being poor conductors
D) Hidden kill switch??
Tomorrow hopefully my neighbour will pop over during the day so I can try to test problem A with the missing wire. I want to measure the voltage output to the coil while CRANKING, by myself I can only measure with the ignition in RUN. If it still isn’t seeing 12V during CRANK, I’ll run a short wire directly from battery +ve terminal, and touch it to the coil only while cranking the motor. Fingers crossed I can get a little cough outta the motor, or at least my timing light to blip on once.
This afternoon I had a 45-min conversation with the guys at the local parts shop, they’re glad that after 6-years of coming in there, I’ve finally brought them Domestic problems. I’ll go back tomorrow with a couple pictures of the 350, and hopefully they can narrow down a decade from which it was originally built, and start to understand how to get it up and running.
