engine and drivetrain Tii Dies Under Load

[OriginalOwner]

Bill, nothing like that on my car that I have ever seen.

 

John, no surprise, my car still has the from-the-factory coil installed, it is black in color.  So I assume that sneaky wire is somewhere in the loom ??

 

BACK ON TOPIC:  Parkertii, another wild idea:  the rotor is bad.  Way back when, my '48 Chevy truck got a tune-up with new everything.  40 miles later, it quit running.  Everything normal and perfect, but discovered the brand-new rotor was somehow broken. 

 

Check your distributor cap:  is that carbon chunk which touches the rotor properly positioned & spring-loaded & clean & doing it's job ??

 

And just to say it, because I don't understand your Crane system.  Does it have a condenser as used with points ??  Condenser could be bad, I've seen those fail.

 

Cheers,

 

Carl

Edited May 28, 2014 by OriginalOwner

[Parkertii]

ok, so i don't have the starter bypass relay, however i think i have found a sneaky wire ballast resistor even though i removed the ceramic one. My guess is that the sneaky ballast resistor quit working at some point and the PO wired in the ceramic one that i already took out, and now the old resistor has started temperamentally working . With the sneaky wire, how do i bypass it? can i just cut it out or is there more to it?

Bill, nothing like that on my car that I have ever seen.

 

John, no surprise, my car still has the from-the-factory coil installed, it is black in color.  So I assume that sneaky wire is somewhere in the loom ??

 

BACK ON TOPIC:  Parkertii, another wild idea:  the rotor is bad.  Way back when, my '48 Chevy truck got a tune-up with new everything.  40 miles later, it quit running.  Everything normal and perfect, but discovered the brand-new rotor was somehow broken. 

 

Check your distributor cap:  is that carbon chunk which touches the rotor properly positioned & spring-loaded & clean & doing it's job ??

 

And just to say it, because I don't understand your Crane system.  Does it have a condenser as used with points ??  Condenser could be bad, I've seen those fail.

 

Cheers,

 

Carl

 

 

Bill, nothing like that on my car that I have ever seen.

 

John, no surprise, my car still has the from-the-factory coil installed, it is black in color.  So I assume that sneaky wire is somewhere in the loom ??

 

BACK ON TOPIC:  Parkertii, another wild idea:  the rotor is bad.  Way back when, my '48 Chevy truck got a tune-up with new everything.  40 miles later, it quit running.  Everything normal and perfect, but discovered the brand-new rotor was somehow broken. 

 

Check your distributor cap:  is that carbon chunk which touches the rotor properly positioned & spring-loaded & clean & doing it's job ??

 

And just to say it, because I don't understand your Crane system.  Does it have a condenser as used with points ??  Condenser could be bad, I've seen those fail.

 

Cheers,

 

Carl

the system does not use a condenser, and the cap and rotor are in good condition. thanks for the suggestion though!

[OriginalOwner]

I am all ears on this sneaky wire business ......

 

Cheers,

 

Carl

[Parkertii]

I am all ears on this sneaky wire business ......

 

Cheers,

 

Carl

 

 i pulled it out, but do i run a new wire in its place or just leave it disconnected?

[ray_]

Pics, please.

[OriginalOwner]

+1 pics, location, color, etc etc ..... I have no idea what is going on ..... THANKS !!!!!

 

Cheers,

 

Carl

Edited May 28, 2014 by OriginalOwner

['76mintgrün'02]

The yellowish wire in this photo is the 'sneaky wire ballast resistor' on my '76.  

It is crimped to the green wire at the firewall (this is where I tapped in for my Pertronix install).  

So you were running with this wire and the ceramic resistor at the same time?  As in, the ceramic resistor was connected to the sneaky wire?

 

If you were to connect a new piece of wire at this crimp connection and run it to the ceramic resistor you would effectively bypass it.

 

 

I doubt there would be intermittent problems with the sneaky wire.  Seems like they are either intact (working), or melted or broken (not working).

 

(Edit: more photos)

Here is where the sneaky wire was hiding 

Edited May 28, 2014 by '76Mintgrun'02

[Parkertii]

i dont have a camera with me but the wire i removed looked exactly like the one shown in the photo above, except instead of being spliced into the green wire i followed it all the way to the fuse box where it was plugged into a terminal next to the green wire. 

How do you bypass this "sneaky wire"? do you simply cut it out, or run a new wire in its place? 

I ran a new wire in its place and now when i turn my key to the auxiliary position the starter kicks on and wont turn off, would this be caused by the lack of a starter bypass relay? 

[Parkertii]

Special note for the '74 tii: The resistance wire runs all the way from the coil to Fuse 12. There is no green wire and no splice. Thanks for eaker02 for that tidbit.

 

 

just found this on a different thread so that reassures me that i have eliminated the right sneaky wire and not something else. But do i run a different wire in its place? or do i just take the wire out?

[Parkertii]

Thanks for every ones help on this. There was a second wire that ran parallel with the ballast resistor wire. To make the car run i took out the ballast wire and installed a regular wire, then when i cut the wire that was by the sneaky wire the car fired up first try. Im not sure what this wire was for and want to make sure that it does not go to anything important before i completely take it out of the car. 

 

I think what happened was that for whatever reason the previous owner disabled the resistor wire, and installed a ceramic resistor in its place. Then tucked the sneaky wire behind the other wires on the firewall. I had taken out the ceramic resistor when i first installed my ignition last fall before building my engine. This spring when i put everything back together i must have accidentally fixed the wire ballast and mistakenly connected it into my crane system.

 

Thats at least my theory, Hopefully the car is actually fixed this time and not being temperamental but it seams like the problem is gone for now. As a side note It is insane the amount of useless wires that i pulled out from under the steering column a few nights ago while looking for this issue. it was a whole rats nest with most of the wires leading to literally nothing. Its amazing the crap the some previous owners put in these cars for whatever reasons.

 

Thanks again for all the help, ill let everyone know in a few days whether or not the problem comes back!

[ray_]

Sounds good! Good luck!!

[JohnS]

 i pulled it out, but do i run a new wire in its place or just leave it disconnected?

Yes, you need to run a new wire in place of the resistor wire.  The 74 and later cars don't use that silver starter bypass relay.  I think they use the solenoid on the starter to power the coil when in starting mode and bypassing the resistor.  Take a look at a wiring diagram to confirm.  As you found, the resistor wire on the 74 tii runs all the way from fuse #12 to the coil so it's easy to bypass it by just unplugging the resistor wire from the fuse box and replacing it with another non-resistor wire.

John

Edited May 28, 2014 by JohnS

[JohnS]

Bill, nothing like that on my car that I have ever seen.

 

John, no surprise, my car still has the from-the-factory coil installed, it is black in color.  So I assume that sneaky wire is somewhere in the loom ??

 

Cheers,

 

Carl

 

The 74 and later cars use the starter soleniod to bypass the resistor wire when in starting mode instead of the starter bypass relay used on the round-eye cars.

 

Look at the positive wire(s) connected to your coil.  You'll see a black wire combined with the resistor wire on a single connection.  The black wire is hot when in starting mode, the resistor wire is hot when running.  The resistor wire looks sort of like yellowed out speaker wire.

 

The original black coils on the tii are equivalent to the red coil and require the same 1.8 ohms of resistance.  I still have a couple of the original black coils from my 73tii and 74tii that have readable labels which says that they require the 1.8 ohm resistor.

 

Edited May 28, 2014 by JohnS

[Parkertii]

.

 

Look at the positive wire(s) connected to your coil.  You'll see a black wire combined with the resistor wire on a single connection.  The black wire is hot when in starting mode, the resistor wire is hot when running.  The resistor wire looks sort of like yellowed out speaker wire.

 

 

 

 

So i ran a regular wire in place of the resistor wire, when i did this the starter would kick on when i had the key in the auxiliary position. When i also cut the black wire the car started and ran just fine. is this black wire needed or should i keep it disabled like it is now? 

[JohnS]

Sounds to me like somebody has modified the stock wiring and things aren't like they would be in the stock configuration.  The reason for that extra black wire to the positive side of the coil is to give the coil some extra juice (boost) when starting instead of going through the resistor (which cuts the voltage down to about 10 volts) when running.  It's supposed to get the full (non-resisted) voltage when the starter is cranking.