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Time to replace the starter?

One pump of the pedal to the floor sets up the choke (if there is one) plus provides fuel to start on. Without that, you may have to crank on the car for some time to get fuel fed thru the carb. The elec. pump only gets fuel to the carb, not thru the carb.
 
You can make a Hillbilly timing tab by finding TDC on #1 and marking the block where 0 is on the balancer ring.
Hook a light to it and give a few degrees advance and it should speed up and smooth out alittle.

I wonder what other women are thinking about that buzzing while your sitting at a stoplight smiling from ear to ear. :roll
 
Ok seriously... :wtf

Was going to take Gertrude out this afternoon to pick up my daughter from her summer college class. Well I turned the battery on. Hopped in the car, turned the key and OMG she started first time! Holy cow! :steer Sat there for a bit with my foot on the gas pedal to make sure to get the juices flowing and let her get warmed up some. After all she is a woman and you know woman got to get warmed up if you're going to take them out for a spin. :roll

After a bit, I take my foot off the gas pedal and she started to die. Ok we're going to play this game. She wants to be grouchy. Nothing new. So put foot back on the gas pedal to keep it going.

Holding the gas pedal down a little. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.

Ok should be enough time for it to keep running without my help.

NOPE! Took the foot off the pedal and she stopped running. Ok she's being tempermental. It happens. Tried starting her back up. Nothing. Kept trying and trying and nothing. Then the solenoid starting sticking. Ugh. Alright then. I grab Mr Orange Mallet (which I keep in the backseat now along with Mr Flathead Screwdriver to open the trunk) and go whack it. It unsticks and the noise stops.

Try starting it again. Nothing. Tried again. Solenoid sticks. Again. Ok grab Mr Orange Mallet again and it unsticks. Repeat a few times. Still wouldn't start. Then I noticed the time, and I had 5 minutes to go pick up daughter so I called it quits, turned the battery off and closed the garage door.

I'm getting really annoyed with this. lol

The funny thing is... I never had this problem until AFTER I replaced the wiring. :confu Yeah the PO did a half-assed job and hacked everything up and some of it was 40+ yrs old but at least she started and never gave me problems.
 
As my years of technical field service work taught me...something usually happened/was done just before "it" started happening. Sure, sometimes a part fails etc. but just as often someone does something that makes the problem appear.

Like you said, everything was fine until you fixed it (re-wired). Go back and figure out which of your "fixes" might be causing the problem. Multiple solenoids failing/sticking out of the box should be your clue something else might be going on. I'd go back, wire by wire, termination point to termination point and make sure everything is correct. If it all checks out OK at least you know it's right. I'd pay real close attention to ground connections if I were you.
 
Several issues.....

Cold start from past posts

Cold idle.....is there a choke?....tune should correct

Warm idle.....tuning.....which has been discussed....it needs to have one person do a good tune up

Warm start.....tune should correct...

Solenoid sticking......if you don't have to crank so much, this should stop happening.

If you have someone look into the tune, be sure to list all the issues even if you do not think they are tune related.
 
Ok thanks guys. Looks like I'm going to have a long weekend going over everything, and then seeing if I can find someone I trust enough to touch my Gertrude to see about tuning it and checking things out.
 
Pete has a valid point on the cranking possibly leading to the solenoid sticking but you would have to crank the hell out of it to cause this given the type of contact involved. You're not cranking for minutes at a time...are you? If you are, stop it! :no
 
"Horseplay" said:
Pete has a valid point on the cranking possibly leading to the solenoid sticking but you would have to crank the hell out of it to cause this given the type of contact involved. You're not cranking for minutes at a time...are you? If you are, stop it! :no
Click to expand...

No. I'm not holding the key and trying to crank for minutes at a time. I try it for a few seconds at a time then stop.

Oh and I called a car club member who owns a performance shop here in town. One of the few folks in town I trust with my car. He can do tuning, carbs, etc. But he said he wants me to get a timing pointer first. lol Which I have a lead on one at a salvage yard but unfortunately they closed already for the day. Anyway, he agreed with ya'll and that it sounds like some electrical gremlin and if I can't figure it out, let him know and I can bring Gertrude to him.

So looks like my weekend will consist of getting down and dirty and checking every wire. :roul
 
Well I called another guy, a mechanic friend of some friends, who knows about tuning, timing, carbs... old cars, etc. Told him what was going on. He drives past my neighborhood every day so he said he's going to try to stop by some afternoon and take a look. Which is great because right now, I can't keep her running so can't drive her over to my friends performance shop.

Since my garage is packed with junk and no room for more than 1 person to move around in, I'm going to spend this weekend cleaning & organizing the garage so I can put Gertrude in the middle and we got room to move around and work on her. I have a 2 car garage but I can barely fit one car in it. :hide
 
hmmmmm.......guy drives by every day......HEY MIDLIFE.....stay home......the arrest people for this.
 
"AzPete" said:
hmmmmm.......guy drives by every day......HEY MIDLIFE.....stay home......the arrest people for this.
Click to expand...

Haven't you heard? It's not stalking. It's intense research of an individual. :roll
 
Had mechanic guy come over tonight and he had some pretty cool gadgets and testers.

He figured out the problem!

Bad plug wire. The one from the coil to dizzy. He used a wire brush and cleaned it. Put it back on and Gertrude started right up. Said I should replace it soon but that was the problem.

Oh and the timing was good but he messed with the carb (idle mixture?) and well... Gertrude sounds WAY better now. I'll get a video tomorrow. Too late to annoy the neighbors now.

I'm so happy it was something simple. Took him all of 5 minutes with his cool expensive testers to find the problem.
 
Was this the high voltage wire (center of coil) or the low voltage wire?
 
Uh the high voltage one? The wire from the middle of coil that goes to middle of dist.. it was the one side/boot that connected to the top of the dist he cleaned. Wasn't getting good enough connection.
 
"Kats66Pny" said:
Uh the high voltage one? The wire from the middle of coil that goes to middle of dist.. it was the one side/boot that connected to the top of the dist he cleaned. Wasn't getting good enough connection.
Click to expand...

Whew. I was holding my breath that it wasn't in the harness I restored.
 
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