Hey guys. I recently picked up a 1938 pickup with the stock flathead v8 that is stock minus the 8 volt battery. It was a runner until recently I drove it to a friends house, when I wen’t to leave it wouldn’t start so I started at square one and found it had no spark and the ballast resistor had taken a shit. I put a jumper wire across the ballast and it fired right up, I pulled the jumper off and turned the engine off via ignition switch. Skip forward a few days I tow it home, wait a week for the new resistor to show up and install. After install it won’t start at all. I have 8v coming into resistor and 3.5 leaving and 3.5 at coil. (Stock pancake style) I have fuel, it has air and I pulled a plug and looks to have spark, possibly weak? I am stumped. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Change the condenser first off. You could have a bad coil, too. Check the point gap and look for cracks or carbon tracking in/on the cap and on the coil tower. The fact that it ran when you bypassed the resistor makes me think one of the first two mentioned is faulty and may be the cause of the resistor failure. Check for bad insulation ( shorts) or corroded contacts on any wires or insulators in the ignition system. Check the points for burned contacts. 31/2 volts to the distributor is about right for an original ignition system on these. You can bypass or remove the resistor but point life will be an issue as well as coil overheating.
Changed out the condenser tonight, still no luck. Here’s a few pics, if anybody sees anything wrong or out of place please let me know!
Is it just me or does it look like the contact points on your rotor aren't even coming close to the contacts in the cap?
When the truck was new and 6volts, did it have a ballast resistor? I seem to recall there not being one on a 40 Ford PU my dad had and him putting one in when he changed to 12 volts.
There are 2 different rotor and cap combinations and the caps index in different locations there sure does look like a mix match there the curve of the contact points should be 90* from where they are at
That was my thought but nothing seems loose and it ran great prior to the ballast going out. Any other input on this?
New condenser could be bad , if you tried a new one . Jumping the ballast resistor could of fried the coil , esp with 8 volts ( get rid of that ) or your points are burnt and need cleaning and reset
As I stated above you have the wrong rotor and cap combination You’ve got black carbon tracks on rotor and melted posts on cap Probably looks like a 4th of July fireworks display inside that distributor
I had the same issue when I had my 38 and burned the helmet coil. I went with the adapter like you have and nothing at first. Turned out spring in cap was not setting well. Adjusted and worked great. Here's a screenshot from another member that had same issue.
Sorry I didn’t realize it was wrong I thought u we’re just showing photos of the differences! This truck was running perfect until the resistor issue. So do you really think I have the wrong setup since it was running before? Or do you think form being wrong, it finally just shit the bed?
Ok guys! Update! I had a friend fix the distributor and he had the truck running CHERRY! I trailered it home and went to drive it to town and ended up getting some bad gas and the truck wouldn’t start fuel line was totally clogged. So I put a new tank in along with new fuel lines swapped on a carb that I knew was good and it’s running terrible! I know I have good spark and I’m getting fuel! Any ideas? Sputters real bad and will barley run. Maybe it’s not going enough fuel?
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