"rebar in the ground. It works for houses right?" Nope. A car is a closed system. You must ground the spark plug wires to the car's ground. The negative battery cable, the engine block, any bare metal that is connected to the battery negative. That is why you got no spark. It needs to return to the closed system. Good move fabricating a harness to ground the spark plug terminals. That is the safest way to go. Take your buss bar and ground it to the engine block. It should work as long as you did not blow the ignition module. Keeping fingers crossed.........
I dont even know what I don't know let alone what I do know. Went and got an inline sparkplug tester. Went thru every sparkplug cable and it would light up as it passed that cable. It wasn't real bright so I go to test it with a multi meter. In my head I hook black to ground and alligator clip the red to each wire. But it doesn't register on a multimeter. Is that because it's not on that wire long enough? The old trying to get it to arc to a screwdriver doesn't show a spark. About ready to just hold one in my hand to see......ok, no spark while holding it. So now I don't understand whe the inline tester lit up.
Man I wish I was closer to you so I could lend a hand. I say start from scratch. Hook the 'pink' HEI power wire right to the battery positive. Too many other things to go wrong using the car's ignition circuit. Rig your test harness so every spark plug wire is grounded to the engine block. Spark plugs removed. Hook up the timing light inductive pickup to the #1 spark plug wire. Power clips go to the battery, red + and black -. Crank the engine. It should spin rapidly and every time #1 fires the timing light should flash. Let me know what happens.
Birthdays are special, enjoy. I was going to say get some sleep and try again when you are fresh. Someone smarter than me once told me- 'you need to know when to walk away. What is taking 5 hours now will take 5 minutes tomorrow.' So true.
Alright, snuck back out to the shop, got it timed, locked it down, double checked, still good. Now sleep. Will await further instructions, lol. Thanks again buddy
See that? Not so hard. I use that system when I have no idea what I am dealing with. This way no matter what other issues there are, like carburetor problems, at least once it is timed you know that it will want to start. Now you can put the spark plugs back in and hook up the ignition wires. Leave the HEI hooked to the battery for now. Add some fuel and see if it fires. If it does, shut it off and have a well deserved beer. Then we can start getting it tuned and operational. Is there coolant yet? You don't want to run it without coolant that is why I said stop for now until all the other things are in place.
Yes sir, all fluids back in. I'll get plugs back in and give it a go. Hopefully it will be turn key and fire right up. Need to let it run for a bit so it will burn 35 years of crap of the exhaust system.
So what about your fuel supply? What did you do about the cruddy gas tank? Do you have a fresh filter in the carb? When you work the throttle does gas squirt out of the accelerator ports? Did you try squirting gas into the carb? [not too much!] It should fire for a moment then die. When you open the throttle on a cold engine does the choke close totally? Since you managed to time the engine that leaves fuel as the last problem. That is why I like to use an outboard motor portable gas tank. That way I know the gas is fresh and I can pump it into the carb with the hand pump in the fuel line. The only way to know if the fuel bowl is full is when working the throttle gets gas squirting out the accelerator ports inside the throttle bore. Here is my email- Fourspeedman@webtv.net. But keep posting here because you don't know who is following the thread and needs to learn about what is going on. That is the whole point of these boards- so others can read and learn. Like I said, every search I did led me here so I joined up.
So the gas is new. Seems to be getting fuel to the bowl. Had no idea the carburetor had a filter. And I would have thought a couple shots of starter fluid would have let it fire for a second
I don't like starter fluid, too volatile. It is usually meant for winter as in summer it evaporates too fast. Yes, a gas filter is right inside where the gas line comes to the carb. It's a 5/8" nut on the fuel line and a 1" big nut on the filter body. Hold the 1" or it may come undone with the gas line nut. If you were getting gas you would see it pump out from the accelerator ports when you work the throttle. If not, you are not getting gas. These ports are there so when you want to accelerate, you get an extra big shot of gas, thus the name. Also when you are starting the car, and you 'pump the gas' those ports are squirting gas into the throttle bore to make it easier to start. See that green arm on the driver side top of the carb?. The plunger it is pushing on is the accelerator pump. If you plan on playing with the Q-jet I would recommend getting the Rochester Carburetors book by Doug Roe. It has everything you need to not only clean and re-build a Q-jet- but more importantly- understand what and why you are doing it. The most valuable thing to have is the original carburetor that came with the engine.
So my mistake, when you said filter in the carb, I thought you were talking about something different from the fuel filter. Fuel filter is brand new and facing the correct direction. I lm sure it's getting gas when I hit the pedal. Not sure if it was the correct amount. I closed both adjusters on the carb the backed them up 3 full turns. So maybe like my comment about tge house wiring being the same, I'm used to mowers where you hit it with a shot of starter fluid and if you have a a spark it will fire up briefly.
Can you see the gas getting in? If you pry open the choke flap, and look down the throat of the carb,as you work the throttle you will see two big squirts of gas go shooting out of the ports. And they should be BIG prolonged squirts, like a 10 beer pee. If not, the pump may be bad after sitting 30 years. In that case squirt some gas in. I do that too on lawn mowers. If there is a bit of crud clogging the jet, I pull the spark plug, squirt some gas in, replace the plug, and fire it up. Often the starting up will blow the crud out of the jet and it will run. Otherwise it needs to be removed and cleaned.
Have you tried brand new spark plugs? I once pulled my hair out on a car and after changing all the plugs it fired right up. Still kicking myself for that one.
So you have the timing for #1 set at 9° BTDC, the carb has gas and squirts when pumped, the HEI is wired right to the battery, and it won't start. Hmmmmm. Try pulling a spark plug, keep it in the plug wire, ground it to the engine. See if it is actually sparking. You will have to excuse me if I am not responding fast. I am banging my head against the wall trying to get my little Whaler ready to launch. I must have really beat the crap out of it the last few seasons as it is full of problems. Once it is in the water I can relax a bit.
Your good brotha, you get that boat out, take your granddaughter out and catch a bunch if fluke or whatever else you can catch. Are there crab up in your area? I'd sell my stepmom for some juicy crab legs. I'm returning my distributor and getting what I hope for the money is a better one. I'll get new plugs and try again then. In the mean time I think I will do a little bass fishing myself. Peace
Before you return it, try bench testing it. Clamp it in a vise. Remove all spark plug wires. Remove the cap but leave the three wires connected to the base. Hook 12 volts to the cap as usual with a battery. Ground the base to the battery. Now, most important, make a ground for the spark. I like to take a coat hanger, attach one end to the battery negative, or the base, and rig it so the other end is near the coil button on the inside of the cap. That button is what sends the spark from the coil to the rotor and the rotor 'distributes' the spark to each terminal. By having a grounded coat hanger wire right near the button, the spark can jump to it and not bite you. Now, if you spin the shaft by hand, the coil will fire every time it would as normal. The spark should jump to the wire and as you pull the wire away from the button, [with insulated pliers and thick gloves] the coil will increase the voltage needed to reach that wire. I have gotten the spark to jump 12 inches or more. That is how powerful the HEI coil is. This is how you judge the HEI. If you get a healthy solid blue spark that can jump several inches, you are good to go. If it's a weak orangey spark, or no spark, something is wrong. Just be CAREFUL as the HEI can put out up to 20,000 volts. It hurts like a MF'er, ask me how I know.
What's up buddy? How's it going? You get your boat ready? Well good news here, got it running and starting on first crank. Trying to decide if I'm ready to put the ac back in yet or if I should leave it out a bit longer. Got an exhaust leak on the driver's side at the manifold connection. The seal didn't seal worth a crap. So here is a laugh for you at my expense. I've spent the better part of the last 2 weeks trying to figure out why the f'ing taillights wouldn't come on when it was getting 12v the the f'ing sockets. Then just by chance, checking grounds I figured out that the f'ing taillights ground through the f'ing housing that bolts to the f'ing frame. *sigh* that's my life, doesn't have to be yours, lol. Got a couple questions on the power steering section for you also if you don't mind since you just redid yours. First, is thus knuckle supposed to have a cover or is it supposed to be open? And it seems like whenever I jack the front end up I have a small puddle of power steering fluid under the knuckle area. Mine doesn't have tilt steering or anything. And lastly, my steering wheel neck is cracked in like 3 places around the neck. Did you get a new wheel or just the center piece?? Seems like it should be a pretty straightforward swap, but then I thought the taillights would be pretty straight forward also. Thanks again
Hey there Brian, welcome back. I was wondering where you were. Nope, still screwing with the boat. Lots of problems this year. I'll get it done, then it's in the water until November. That is why it has to be all squared away properly. What happened with the HEI? Did it work or did you get a new one? That steering part is called the 'rag joint'. It is a flexible coupling with a big rubber gasket 'rag' to suppress vibrations. It is not covered. In later years they did provide a plastic sleeve to protect it. See that plastic nut above it? Just above that there is the column lower bearing. It gets wet and dirty, eventually the bearings fail, and it is made of unobtanium. If you ever have a LOT of time on your hands, and feel the column needs a freshening up, you can dis-assemble it and fix that lower bearing with new balls. Mine was so bad and missing so many bearing balls I pirated some from a parts column. The oil leak may be the steering box input shaft, or more likely, one or both hoses. De-grease and find out what is exactly leaking. Hoses are easy. The end shaft seal is fixable but the box will need to come off the frame for that. Do you have the 'deluxe' steering wheel? If so, it is normal to break like that. In fact it was a factory recall. Few survived and fewer survived un-broken. I used a Formula wheel from a Trans Am on mine. If I am wrong, show a pic and I can maybe help identify it better. I can barely even find a picture of the deluxe one. It has a horn button on each spoke, and the cool Firebird center cap. See this thread: deluxe steering wheel
Yup, that's my steering wheel is. Car had the Deluxe package. I went ahead and sent the $70 distributor back and dropped the cash on the pertronix flamethrower 3. And they are proud of it. Honestly don't know if that is what made the difference or what it was. After the 57th or was it 77th time of trying to find tdc and clock the rotor perfectly I'm pretty sure I just got lucky. But it's been starting first crank ever since. I do know what the problem was for about 30 of them. I had my setup all ready with the remote trigger, timing light straight 12v to the battery. All I had to do was just hook up to the battery. So after about a week hating life I realized that i had the inductor on the timing light pointing the wrong. *sigh* that's my life, doesn't have to be yours, lmao
Yikes, that is an expensive unit. But it is probably the best available. Pertronix was the very first to offer a points elimination kit. If you go to car shows many, many, will will have it concealed under the stock distributor cap so it looks like a points ignition. But who the 'ell wants to deal with points anymore?!? Good move. A $70 HEI could not have been the best quality so now you are in business. Listen, don't beat yourself up over 55 year old car problems. You could walk in to any shop, anywhere, and no one would know what to do either. You are trying to learn old school maintenance and repairs that USED to be common knowledge. Now it is a dying art and needs to be kept alive on sites like this one. I am also active on G-bodyforum. Same deal. Guys get a nice Monte Carlo SS and don't have a clue how to fix stuff. But as long as you have an open mind and want to learn, you will be fine. I am glad you have the Deluxe interior. My hardtop had it and I prefer it over the standard any day. Too bad the steering wheel was a failure, it was the best looking. I have a couple and they are cracked too. Any steering wheel from almost any old GM car or a Grant will backfit so take your pick. The Pontiac Formula wheel is pretty available used and is an easy swap.
All the '68 deluxe wheels cracked eventually. Mine was cracked by 1969 so a Pontiac dealer replaced it with a new one under a recall or warranty. I don't know if the replacement is the "improved" one they mention in the recall but it didn't take long for it to also crack. It's the one on my car now.
Interestingly, GM blamed it on the owners. ________________________________ Edit: I recalled a discussion with examples of two different deluxe wheel designs so I looked for it. The warranty wheel on mine now, a dealer replacement, is cracked but nowhere near as bad as some in pictures in various discussion posts in this forum.
Wow Jim thanks for posting that. I knew it was a recall but I had no idea it was considered that dangerous. I have my original Teal color one that was terribly cracked, and a black one that is not so bad. I will have to check and see if the black one has that plate on the underside. Would you know if it is possible to repair these? Can you epoxy them back into some kind of reliable shape? Or are they just too far gone? Funny GM would say that about them. My hardtop car was bought by a girl that lived across the street from me in 1968. She was not very big and I doubt she put much weight on the steering wheel ever. I was at the Englishtown swap meet and car show many moons go. A guy had a 1968 Firebird convertible and his Deluxe steering wheel was in perfect condition. He had never heard of the recall, and said as far as he knew the wheel was original to the car. But he did wonder why he had never seen one on any other Firebird.
There are places that do steering wheel restoration and I've read about guys using home repair with various epoxy putty products like POR15's or Eastwood's. I don't know how well either repair holds up long term. Here's a couple restorers I've seen mentioned. I don't know much about them but note the wheels in their galleries of restored examples. http://garyssteeringwheel.com/gallery.htm and https://qualityrestorations.org/pontiac/
We used to have a Pontiac dealership in my town. When they closed up I had a chance to grab from a pile of stuff at giveaway prices. There was a Deluxe steering wheel core on the pile. I passed because mine was OK at the time, and it was a goofy color. Still kicking myself in the butt over that one. On the plus side I did get a brand new 326-350-389-400 crankshaft. I still have it.
Nice, I dint think to many places have real going out of business clearance sales anymore. Got a furniture store here that has a going out of business sale every other year for the last 20 years.
Hey buddy need some advice. Still haven't got the car on the road yet but as more things come together, wires connected guages hooked back up I'm letting the engine run for longer periods of time. I'm getting smoke, but not exactly sure where it's coming from. Some thoughts are just 30 years crap on the exhaust. Who knows how much oil has dripped down on them. Engine paint? Although it's not supposed to burn. Seals and rings? How would I know if it just needs break in time or replaced?? Those are just thoughts of mine. What are your thoughts? Not sure where to start looking. Thanks
Glad to hear is it running nicely. If you want I can walk you through the carb tuning. You will need the tachometer and vacuum gauge. Smoke is normal on an old engine that has been sitting. Rings get stuck and will pass oil for a while until they loosen up. But oil smoke will only be found at the exhaust pipe. Any other smoke on the engine itself will be paint curing or oil leaks. What paint did you use? I like POR-15 engine enamel. It needs to be cured with engine heat. Regular spray paint will smoke for a while. Anything on the exhaust manifolds will absolutely smoke. Valve covers, did you use new gaskets with a schmear of sealer? All gaskets will eventually leak and once disturbed, they will surely leak. I like cork with a schmear of Ultra Black.
Yup went with cork gasket and a touch of ultra blk. Do you use a gasket between the exhaust manifold and exhaust or just use a bead of the red gasket maker? I've got a gasket from a felpro engine kit I bought. All other gaskets work fine except those crappy ones. I'm thinking about using the high temp red silicone. I know it holds up good in hvac heaters and airplane engines. For the engine paint I used duplicolor enamel with ceramic. Supposed to withstand heat up to 500°. In the pontiac blue of course. And yes sir, I would absolutely would like it if you walked me thru a tune up. At your convenience of course. Ty
