Cranks but wont start, no tach reading, has gas, no spark

sy2207

Donating Member
My truck has been sitting for four months and when I try to start it all it does is spin. I looked through the GM syclone supplement book of drivability and emmissions. The diagrams arent very clear I have power to the coil on the red wire in the gray plug. The second black plug behind the gray plug goes to the distrubutor and has a white and red wire. I know the white wire is the tach, should the red wire have 12 volts as well? According to my scan tool the computer reads fine, I am just not getting a tach signal.

In the supplement book it talks about this four pin plug that should be disconnected to check if the inductor has a low signal.. I cant find this four pin plug.

Any suggestions?
Brian
 

ed hess

race or get outta the way
make sure that white and pink between the coil and distributor is plugged in all the way to the distributor. that will cause all you see.

ed
 

sy2207

Donating Member
ed hess said:
make sure that white and pink between the coil and distributor is plugged in all the way to the distributor. that will cause all you see.

ed

I wish it was that easy but the connectors are on solid without corrosion. I even went as far to try a different coil but no luck.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Pull the distributer cap and watch the rotor make sure the rotor is spinning with the engine
 

jwaller

Evil Genius/SyTy Guru
I know you have checked the fuses in the cab but how about the ones on the back of the alernator. those will make it not run. in addition to the ecm A and B. do you get a check eng light when you turn the key on?
 

TrboSy2051

New member
My truck sat for about 4 months and did the same thing ........... changed the coil, control module ? (it's on/in the distrubtor) and the coil pick up in the dist. ............... turned out to be that, the windings had corroded and no power was getting through....... doesn't take long to check w/ an ohm meter. You'll have to pull the dist. to swap out though.

HTH
Buddy
 

sy2207

Donating Member
It looks as though that it is infact the pickup coil in the distrubutor. Everyting else seems to check out. I figured it was either a corroded component or a loose plug since everything looks good visually. I still cant find the four pin plug they talk about in the book. Ill swap out the distrubuitor tomorrow and hopefully well see some action. Then, its time for a wash.

Thanks guys
Brian
 

ed hess

race or get outta the way
tomorrow when you pull the dist you will find it since it is the larger of the 2 plugs on the distributor. :D

ed
 

sy2207

Donating Member
Problem solved :D

It was definately the distributor. The pickup coil on the top was rusted a little bit but that wasn't the problem. It turns out that two of the six pickup magnets came loose and droped down a little ways in the distributor body. These wedged the upper portion of the inductor and kept it from spinning.

Went to napa and picked up a new distributor. This gave me a redesigned inductor that looks like nothing ever could go wrong. Much better engineered. 130 bills later I am back to business. I haven't had much time to play with it but I will bet my idle will be more stable with this change.

Oh yeah, I found that four pin plug. I could have sworn that there were only three wires coming out from it. Next time I will have to turn on another light.

Brian
 
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