electrical and ignition Car myteriously shuts down

[PeterCS]

I am embarassed to say that I have no clue - there was no place to attach it. 

 

It has been like that since the restoration and the car was not cutting out before. 

 

Peter CS

[Son of Marty]

Can you tell us what the color of the wire and tracer are, in that area it probably goes ether to the coil or maybe the washer pump.

[PeterCS]

Here are more pics of the wiring. There is a string of wires that are unconnected - 4 short ones and two long ones that likely go the washer pump.  They can be seen on the picture to the right.

 

Does this help?

[avoirdupois]

More (wider angle) pictures might establish the original connections for those dangling wires.  I suspect they once supplied voltage to an electric choke, and/or idle solenoids, but those are guesses based upon limited viewing on a small tablet in bright lighting.  Maybe others have a better view. 

 

You might consider repeating the drill where your engine dies and then immediately test for a spark from the lead at the top of the coil to the distributor.  If no spark is evident, it is a fair bet the coil's been cooked or its wiring is loose/corroded.  A spark would likely indicate the problem lies elsewhere, including upstream through the distributor cap, rotor and plug wires.  Are those solid core or carbon impregnated resistor plug wires?

 

The fact that you have what appears to be a blue coil suggests there may not be a ballast resistor for you to check, since the blue coil design incorporates resistance, obviating the need for an external resistor .  At the risk of over generalizing, only the later '74-'76 models employed a (usually) clear, amber-tinted resistor wire instead of the more typical ceramic ballast resistor set up others have mentioned.  So, if you have an early model, you are probably ok with the Blue coil sans resistor.

 

EDIT: I neglected to read where you have a later '74 model, and this means you should probably look for and possibly replace the resistor wire that feeds voltage to your coil with a non-resistance equivalent.  Otherwise, your coil may not be getting sufficient voltage, since it has both built in resistance as well as the resistance in the wire feeding it.  The subject wire can typically be found running parallel to the top of the firewall and is generally thicker than the surrounding wires and often shows signs of overheating, since it can get warm.  It is possible that the resistance wire was eliminated and replaced when the blue coil was installed but you probably would not know that unless you checked.  Even if the original resistance wire is in place, this still does not mean that your coil is not the problem,  and the quickest way to test it is to replace it with an other working 12v coil.

 

Regarding the condenser, as others have suggested, it is almost easier to replace than to test.

 

As alluded to in the beginning of this reply, you might pop off the distributor cap and have a look underneath the cap, the rotor and the points and condenser.  All of these things are described in the owners manual and very basic and easy to inspect and replace with simple hand tools.  Aside from the condenser, which reduces ignition point pitting and increases point life, if distributor cap terminals and/or rotor tip gaps is/are excessive -  this could increase the demand for sufficient voltage to overcome increased gaps, in turn exceeding a marginal coil's capacity.  A "heated" coil only exacerbates the situation. 

 

Again, more under-the-hood photos might prove helpful.

Edited September 20, 2016 by avoirdupois

[PeterCS]

Here are two more pics - as you can see I have a number of unconnected wires around my coil. 

 

There are some other loose wires but I think they were for some emission equipment that my car no longer has.

 

Any help?  Thanks so much for the advice to date.

 

Peter CS

[peterschop]

Since you have a '74 North American car, it should have come with the resistor wire (is this true for Canadian cars?) Since you are running a Blue coil, you should not run the resistor wire. It looks the resistor wire is one of the unplugged wires in your picture. It is the one that you can see the wire strands through the yellowish/clear insulation. Also I believe the black/purple wire powers the coil when the key is turned to start and overrides the resistor wire. The PO must have run a 12 volt wire directly to the coil and unplugged the other two wires since that is what the Blue coil needs. So this is correct for the coil you are running and you can rule out a corroded resistor.

 

This still does not answer why the engine cuts out though.

['76mintgrün'02]

Not all blue coils are created equally.  Here is a bit of reading on the subject.  

http://www.ratwell.com/technical/BlueCoil.html

Apparently the author is not a fan of the one you have there.  

e old ones.
	Made in Mexico with silver label. Another no terminal dud to avoid. Bosch 9 224 771 008S

[venoak]

This is a pretty funny coincidence. I have a early 74 Inka 02 and it has been doing the same thing in the last two weeks. Once the engine died on the freeway at 70mph and then restarted about 15 minutes later (before AAA could fetch me) then the other night it died again on a surface street while going about 40mph no restart.  Hello AAA.

 

I have a pertronics in my distributor, new rotor and cap. I also have an Airtex fuel pump mounted in the trunk. 

 

So I did a bunch of trouble shooting and decided it is a bad Airtex E8016s fuel pump.

 

Trouble shooting results:

- no fuel in bottom of carb or anywhere else in there

- no fuel being produced out of the fuel pump while connected to fuel tank but not the carb

- new fuel filter just in case before the pump intake. Old one was clean

- good voltage to fuel pump (at fuel pump)

- good ground continuity 

- back flushed / blew out fuel supply line from carb to fuel pump. No crud, clear fuel

- put it all back together properly

- gave the fuel pump a couple of raps with the business end of my pliers (Old School). 

- Started up like usual. 

 

One diagnostic note:

My fuel pump normally made a loud clicking noise when priming (start up), then settled down to a quiet ticking noise during normal operation.  When it was having problems it never made the louder sound, in fact it barely made any ticking noise at all. 

 

Finally, I called Airtex about my problem.  They confirmed that I should replace the old pump and that they would honor their lifetime warranty. 

 

Waiting for new pump to come in now.

 

I hope this is in fact the fix for me. I hate seeing my car on a flatbed.

 

I'm also going to put my spare Pertronics (KB might be on to something here) and my old mechanical fuel pump, hose and clamps in my trunk just in case I have to do a roadside swap.

 

Let me know what finally works for you. 

 

Edit:

After switching out the fuel pump and filter. Everything is running as it should again. 

 

Good luck tracking down your problem. Hope my two cents helped. 

Edited October 1, 2016 by venoak
Update

[avoirdupois]

Agree with Peterschop re coil wiring bypassing the resistor wire.

 

Another means of solving the wiring puzzle might be to test for voltage, switched and unswitched.  Consulting a wiring schematic could be time consuming but worthwhile.  In any event, it is probably not prudent to leave any uncovered live wires near fuel vapor.  At the very least, electrical tape might be a friend.

 

Another sordid discussion of coils: Coils Boing!

 

As mentioned before, one of the quickest ways to test the coil absent test equipment - would be swapping it out for one that is known to be working.

 

I think most of us assumed that your [electric] trunk-mounted fuel pump was working properly.  Frankly, if the carburetor has fuel in the bowl when the engine dies, it is unlikely that the pump is the problem.  However, "unlikely" does not mean "impossible."

[peterschop]

2 hours ago, '76Mintgrun'02 said:

Not all blue coils are created equally.  Here is a bit of reading on the subject.  

http://www.ratwell.com/technical/BlueCoil.html

Apparently the author is not a fan of the one you have there.  

e old ones.
	Made in Mexico with silver label. Another no terminal dud to avoid. Bosch 9 224 771 008S

 

Ahh, the plot thickens! Is that a real Blue coil or is that a Mexican Blue coil? The article says the Brazil Blue coil is 3.4 ohms on the primary side but does not say what the silver label Mexican coil measures. The article is written for VW's and their Black coil which does not need a ballast resistor is different from the BMW Black coil which is anywhere from 0.9 to 1.2 ohms on the primary side. PeterCS should measure the primary side of the coil to see if it is the right one. To do that, Measure with an ohm meter from the (-) to the (+) side and it should be around 3.4 ohms. If so, it should be the correct coil without a ballast resistor.

[peterschop]

PeterCS, another thing to check is your fuel filter. If it is clogged, your engine will starve for fuel. After the engine shuts down, the fuel can seep past the fuel filter and run again. One way to check after the engine quits is to pull the fuel line off by carburetor and put the end of the line in a gallon milk jug. Crank the engine and see how much fuel is coming out. If it is only a trickle, it could be the pump or fuel filter. A dirty filter may cause the engine to die while driving but continue to run while idling. 

[72_02]

Following this one.

 

My car did the same thing, after waiting 3 hours for insurance tow truck I got my own and took to Little Garage on LI.

 

I seemed hot around the coil. I have pertronix, new rotor, wires, cap, and pretty good wiring.

 

Interested to see if it's a fuel problem for you! Hope you can fix soon. If the garage gives me an update on my issue soon will post so you can check if its the same. etc.

[bmdubl02]

On September 19, 2016 at 10:41 AM, PeterCS said:

It shuts down as if the key was turned off. 

This tells me that it's an electrical problem.

The next time this happens (and you've made it to the side of the road safely) open the hood and 

push a few electrical connections tight and see if your car starts. If not, push in a few more et cetera.

This happened to me 15 or more years ago several times (same symptoms  as you experienced) and I did this, car fired right up, hasn't happened since.

Thing was - I was in a sketch part of the world, pushed in (tight) every electric connection under the hood in under 90 seconds, she fired up and I was outta there. In hindsight I wished I'd have been more patient with trying to find out exactly what was causing the problem. But the shot in the dark worked.