slant 6 help....not hamb approved car

My vote would be on the white ceramic resistor mounted on your firewall. It's been a lot of years but I had a '63 Valiant that had the same problems you describe and I remember my frustration until I found that POS!

 

Pull the cap ,crank engine does rotor turn? Find timing mark,put on TDC =rotor should point to #1 or the forth cylinder in the firing order. If it don't the gear on the dist is striped or timing chain has shit the bed.

 

Seems a lot of guys are not reading the post. The car has electronic ignition. There is no points and there is no condenser. He says he has spark, the issue is not ignition. He says he has gas, we persume it is good gas that actually burns. He says he has compression, so the valves have to be opening and closing and the timing chain is at least intact, but could be off a tooth.

That leaves 3 options.
1) The plugs are gas fouled. Pull them out, hold them with a pair of pliers and hold a fire (cig lighter, tourch, matches) under the plug end that goes into the engine for a few seconds (do not let the end get red) to burn off the gas, reinstall. Once the plugs are burned clean and reinstalled, move on to the next 2 steps before you try to start it.
2) Timing chain/gears bad. Take off the cap, rotate the engine. Stop, then note the location of the rotor and mark the balancer. Now reverse the direction and see how many degrees the balancer moves before the rotor begins to turn. 10 degrees means about an inch of balancer movement. 10 degrees would be too much, 3 or 4 degrees would be close to the limit.
3) The plug wires are in the wrong place. Bring # 1 up on compression, set to the "0" timing marks on the balancer, pull the cap and see where the rotor is pointing. Wire the firing order 1, 5, 3, 6, 2, 4 in the correct direction from where the rotor is pointing.

Once you get the thing to run, change your oil again, its likely full of gas. Gene

 

allpar.com has the firing diagram if you need to see and slantsix.org has a good forum for in depth "expert" advice for the slant ...heck my '74 Dart had a 1 year only "safety" addition that required the seat belt to be connected before it would crank.....

 

Hi guy .lets start with a base line. 1 get the moter top dead center. look at the ballancer, then pull the cap, wheres the roter ? should be at # 1. 2 if thats ok pull the plugs and check to see if there wet or dry. 3 then with a test light check and see if the box is getting fire. Slants dont have a habbit of eating timing chains.
I went thru four new orange boxs before I got a good one go to your local mopar and get the real deal. from what you are saying it sounds to me like 1 box 2 resister 3
hot from key is grounding out for some reason.

 

Welcome to the Hamb. I went through this a couple weeks ago on radiator fitment. 300 guys throwing in thier GUESSES at random because they "saw a guy at a car show 40 years ago whose wife had that very problem at the grocery store", and 2 guys that KNOW how to do it.

 

I agree with the basics covered above, but another idea to throw out here. Check the plugs for spark (not a visual check). Long story: I had this exact same situation on a Mopar 440 ('70's Cordoba) I was trying to help a friend get running for a project. Went through the ignition, verified the nylon distributor gear was not stripped (what the H@!! were they thinking anyway?!), timing, fresh gas down the airhorn, timing, distributor cap carbon tracking, verifying hot spark, etc.

After about 2 hours of re-checking everything, I decided to check the spark through the plug rather than at the end of the plug wire. Pulled out the #1 plug and it looked fine. Cranked the engine and watched the spark through the plug, and that was the problem. The ceramic insulator was cracked up at the base (on the combustion chamber side. The spark was weak and way up inside the plug instead of at the tip. I pulled out 2 more and they were failed the exact say way. I told him to get a set of plugs and call it done. He bought plugs the next day and it started up 1st piston over.

The moral of the story - spark plugs can detariorate from sitting, so when you check spark be sure to check all the way through the plug. Good luck.

 

tried just about everything suggested except taking the valve cover off
and still nothing
tomorrow im going to hook up an msd box to see if itll get more fire....more or less for shits and giggles

 

so far im back to sqaure one it seems

i have no spark once again
but the button rotates with the cap off and u bump the starter
im trying to fix the wiring disaster the previous owner did
but its been a pain tracking down the wrong colored wires...stupid manuals
i cleaned the plugs
rechecked the dist install
put the cap back on
basically double checked everything i could think of...

and you guessed it...nothing

 

You still have the standard Mopar electronic ignition?

Turn on the key, using a test light or a meter, see if you have voltage at the + side of the coil. If you have a volt meter, what is the voltage reading.

If you want to PM me, I will go through the process one step at a time. I've owned Mopars for many years and have been a Mopar dealer tech, and have worked at many repair shops through the years. Gene

 

Have you replaced the ballast resistor? I just had one go on my Dodge truck. Went just like that...

 

i have no points or any old parts
its a 73 valiant/duster(per a vin decoder) apparently....not a scamp...but has scamp badges..go figure
ive studied the wiring diagrams for it and the wire colors are wrong on some of the real important wires....

im getting no spark at this time
im trying to fix what was a push button to a normal start ignition
when u turn the key to start the volt meter goes ape shit
but nothing...so i guess im missing some wiring under the dash
and the fusebox is a hackjob
so it looks like ill be replacing it for safety reasons
hopefully when my buddy has time to come over he can help me run through everything

 

With all of that done, it sounds like either the distributor is off somehow, or the timing chain has jumped.

A bad ballast resistor is the first most likely culprit. You may have bought a bad new one - not uncommon in these days of cheap-assed overseas replacement parts. There is absolutely NO way the car will start with a bad one. Try that first, before you pull the distributor or start pulling the front of the engine apart.

 

just blow it up.your information sucks,first its this,then that,now the wiring is fucked up..

 

I stand corrected 440 roadrunner; we did indeed TEST the ballast resistor before we replaced it. Some folks don't test anything. Based upon this gentleman's shotgun approach to fining what was wrong; I assumed he'd buy parts rather than testing.

 

just put a 440 in it and call it done.. and all a scamp is a swinger roof valent

 

sorry if i dont explain to your godlike standards

i started out shotgunning everything
now im testing everything and found that the wiring is fucked in the ignition department
and that i have no spark
the reason everything changes is because i was trying different things
forgive me if i tried fixing it
the main reason i just threw money at it to begin with was because i bought this car for a driver...NOT A PROJECT

im going back to sqaure one and starting fresh
so if everything checks out and the wiring is sound and it still does not start im getting rid of it

 

I tend to do things in a shotgun approach as well if it's my driver. fortunately I've got an employee who is also a Mopar fanatic, is kinda slow, but very methodical.
A few weeks ago I pulled into the gas station with my /6 truck, and when I went to leave it wouldn't fire. He came over with test gear, checked the resistor after a few other things and found it bad. when we took it off it was plainly burnt up. so I bought a handfull of them just 'cause they're cheap.
Don't worry too much that some of the guys here sound annal. It just goes with the whole internet thing. they'd not tallk to you to your face like they do on the web.
where the heck is Ooltweah?

 

its right outside of chattanooga

wires to the coil have power
and when you bump the engine it changes so i know to the coil im getting power
and the coil is good....just tested it and put it in another engine
from there i think i might have something wrong with the button/cap/wires
hopefully im on the right path

 

Dam Mak you got more problems lately! i hope you have better luck with the victims you work on at work!!

 

Try a points distributor. Doesn't cost too much at a wrecking yard.


jerry

 

verify the timing with a timing light, my aspen stripped the gear just a little and had that problem. just start with the basics, fuel spark,timing, they aren't that complicated to fix, if you are frustrated with it,you'll overlook something simple. step back take a deep breath, relax,then go back to it. also how did you keep it from constantly blowing exaust manifold gaskets,when the manifold comes loose?

 

Ballast resistor.

Keep spares in the glove box when you drive a Chrysler from that era.

 

blah. what kinda car is it anyway?
i don't care if you are getting spark or not. how old is the battery? did you try to jump start it?
1. try different battery
2. change pos and neg battery cables
3. start car
4. win

 

make sure you call in an excorcist too,they are possessed. I mean they are old chrysler products, if you don't have spark(just read the entire thing) and the wiring is a disaster, I think you've probably found the culprit.

 

Is there a "kill switch" somewhere?

And why is a slant 6 car not a hamb approved car? lol...

 

do you have you + and - mixed up

 

here is an easy way to find out, put a points dist in, wire to neg side of coil, jump from the pos side of the battery to the pos side of coil, jump starter and it should run! takes everything else out of the equation!!