Baby is giving me problems all of a sudden.

So I put new fans, hooked it directly to coil which now I know was wrong. Driving home and it died on me, never came back and had to push it home.

Guy had voltmeter when I got it into car port, my coil had 3 volts, battery was fine. Determined no spark, so I got new coil.

put it on today and the car fired up, drove 45 feet and she died again and won't start. Had to push it to car port. Only logical question to ask after that is .. WTF! Haha

fuel pump maybe ? I need to buy a voltmeter to see what everything's at but I mean it started so I don't know. Never had any problems with it last 3 years since rebuild

 

The voltage going to the coil goes through a resistor to drop the voltage down to about 8 volts so the points don't burn-up. When you are starting your car, the voltage to the coil is 12 volts so you have hotter spark for quicker starts. If you connected your fan to that wire you burned the resistor since it's not intended to handle that much current. As far as I know, most or all GM cars from 55 (when they went to 12 volts) to around 74 (when they started electronic ignition) had the resistor built into the the wire harness, the wire is a resistor wire. There are 2 ways to fix this: 1) replace the wire harness (if you're interested in it looking stock). 2)find the pink wire coming from the ignition switch and cut it, splice a 14 gauge wire onto it and run the wire to the coil. Attach a 1 ohm ballist resistor to the wire and run a wire from the other side of the resistor to the positive side of the coil. That should solve the problem.

 

I slapped on a Mallory comp ss, whatever was original i don't think is there any more, I'm a truck at electronics.

 

Couldn't find pink wire in the mess of a harness.

i don't have points either

 

But did you use the original wire that went to the coil along with the fans, if so it is like Philbquick said you burned up the wire itself. Need voltmeter to confirm.

 

My dad helped me, he didn't splice it he just put a circle crimp on end of both wires (for fans)and placed it on top of the other two that were on my coil. I think it was the positive side of the coil.

What do I do with voltmeter to confirm, just bought one

 

I agree that you burnt some wiring. Check the fuses and fusable links at starter also. Just to make sure no problems are there also.

 

How do I check if wires are burnt ? There's only 2 going to positive side of coil, red one from distributor and this old one that was there since I've had the car, like dirty yellow.

Think it's weird that it would even start if I fried something though why wouldn't it die at idle or even start at all. Wouldn't start at all with old coil

 

Should only have one on positive of coil but I think the malloy led need power. You will need to open wire harness and trace it back to firewall. . could even be at bulkhead connector. Depends on what weakest link was. At 8 volts I would think fans pulled at least 20 amps. Wire wasn't gauge enough for that demand.

 

Ok will do first thing tomorrow, I wouldn't be surprised. Dual 16 inch spal fans are drawing energy, sounds like a freaking jet when they kick on. Made me drop my burr when they turned on when the temp started getting hot enough :spank:

Says each fan is drawing 22amps lol

 

Did you not read the directions that came with the fans? You are lucky you did not have a fire. These fans need to be wired with relays. There is nothing in your wiring system that can handle this amperage.

Look here for wiring tips. http://www.madelectrical.com/

 

I did everything like it sayed. Except putting orange wire where it was suppose to go. Sayed to hook it to ignition switch which I i don't understand what that means.

my dad put it to the coil, and I trusted him. His fault hahaha I've bin squeezing lots of beer out of him lately

i emailed spal and they sayed it wasent that big a deal that he put it to coil not that it matters now but

 

If you used the supplied harness with a relay you should be OK. Did not get that info from the earlier post. Sounded like you tried to run the fans off of the coil positive wire which could well lead to disaster if the fuse did not work.

The relay(s) allow you to use very little current to switch on a heavy duty circuit that the fans will need. So your dad did not really mess up. Not my favorite way of doing it but sometimes you run out of choices.

So no you need to find out what is wrong.
1. take the + coil wire off. Set you multimeter up for DC volts (20 probably) turn on the key and get a reading.
2. reconnect the coil wire, turn on the key and get a reading.
3. have someone hit the starter as you are taking the same reading.

Let us know what the numbers are.

 

With positive wire off I get no reading. With it on I get a 2.68 reading, this is with old coil. I don't have anyone with me right now to help hit starter. New coil gets a 2.98 reading with everything on

im so close to unloading 6 3inch slugs into this MF. ****

 

You have high resistance somewhere . connector or something. The 3 volts your getting could even be back feed from something else check if you have headlights. Do you have a ground at back of block to firewall?

 

What could cause that ? What do I check. I don't have a ground at back of engine, I remember when it left shop they had mentioned something about that. Sayed I should ground block to frame if I could.

car was running fine though, why all of a sudden? This all started after I put the alum radiator with fans

Assuming this is fans fault which I'm not so sure about because of what it has but the only 2 things sandwiched with it are, whatever that old yellow wire is and a red wire that coming from my distributor. Mall has 3 wire coming from it, brown which looks like ground, red for positive and a green wire going negative on coil

i put new wire from bat to positive coil and it read 10 volts

 

Still need that ground at back of block. Its searching for grounds elsewhere. If it has a floor shifter it can burn that up as ground

 

Will do. I remember when I left the shop they suggested I do that. Il do a couple, what gauge wire should i use ? And just ground to frame right ?

 

10 gauge. Go to firewall. You can get the actual ground strap from autozone. Its just braided mesh

 

Ok so after I got the 12.22 reading from coil with ignition on. Some old guy convinced me to put ballast resister in between my wire thats directly to battery, and wire going to positive coil. Left for 30 min,came back.

ballast resister was hotter then hell and so was my coil. Stove hot. Took it off, put new coil with no ballast resister, start car twice with 4 cranks a piece and nothing happened. Coil was hot hot..