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no starting

marco68

Freshman Member
Offline
hey there, check this out. i had my 68mgb idling outside for a bit while i was paying bills online. when i came out, it wasn't running and hasn't since. i replaced the starter. it was not in great shape. it now turns over like a mother, but no fire. almost acts like i have something not connected somewhere. all i did was the starter. i did notice the resistor had a bad wire to it and thought that was it. no. i checked for spark with my handy tester and have spark. wondering about the cap and rotor. kind of weird here. please help.
 
Check your gas - don't ask me how I know
 
Possibilities are endless, but start simple.
Do you have fuel to the carbs?
Points or electronic ignition? If electronic you could have crapped out.
Dizzy cap, check the carbon electrode to the rotor
Did you mean you have spark to the plugs? If so I'd look at fuel system.
Just some starting points. The real experts will way in.....
 
Take the top off one of the carbs and see if any gas is present, a ticking pump doesn't mean all is well, or pull the hose off, have a jar ready to catch the gas and someone ready to turn the key off.
With just one person around, taking the top off is a better idea.

Wayne
 
Strange as it may sound, we just fired up a 1955 Oldsmobile that the owner parked over 30 years ago because it would not start. Don't cha know it, sometimes the simpleist things are the problem. After 30 years of sitting, we dropped in a battery, saw no spark, got gas, spun like the devil. then for whatever reason, we changed out the condensor in the distributor and that muther fired right up! Try changing the condensor in the distributor.
 
Our B stopped on us at a red light in Tennessee. It had been running perfectly up to that point. Turned out that the rotor had a hair-line crack and the spark went sorta straight down through it instead of to the plugs...took about three hours to figure that out because you could barely see it. :frown:
 
just installed a new cap and rotor and the same is happening. what's weird is, when i took out one spark plug to see if it is flooded or something,it actually tried to start. how or why does that happen? i put it back in with the other 3, and nothing again. it's like i have no spark. i do, i checked. this is killing me......
 
Did you check the Crank Sensor?
 
If the crank sensor checks out okay, check the Mass Air Flow Sensor, and then the Catalytic Converter.
You may have a bug in the on-board computer.
















on a 68, right.
 
Marco can you describe exactly what happened leading up to it not starting?

This is what you wrote before:

"hey there, check this out. i had my 68mgb idling outside for a bit while i was paying bills online. when i came out, it wasn't running and hasn't since. i replaced the starter. it was not in great shape. it now turns over like a mother, but no fire. almost acts like i have something not connected somewhere. all i did was the starter. i did notice the resistor had a bad wire to it and thought that was it. no. i checked for spark with my handy tester and have spark. wondering about the cap and rotor. kind of weird here. please help."

So, the car was running and then it stopped. you replaced the starter, did you reconnect the wires properly? Did you bump a wire? Did you take off the cap? If so, is it 180 deg out?

My point here is that if it was running it should be simple to return it to running but ONLY if you take one system at a time. Can you give us more information?
 
If the crank sensor checks out okay, check the Mass Air Flow Sensor, and then the Catalytic Converter.
You may have a bug in the on-board computer.
















on a 68, right.

Yer quick! LOL
 
crank sensor? does it have one? i just replaced one on my plow truck. did not think a 68mgb would have one. do you know why i get a better response when i take out the one spark plug? wires crossed? i will check. there is gas flow. i did put in a new cap and rotor. to no avail. it turns over great with the new starter. but just does not want to fire.
 
Ignore the crank sensor.
Fuel flow is actually a good sign, but rather meaningless to the no-start condition.
You have spark, I hope at the plugs and not just at the coil.
Recommended earlier to remove topp of float bowls and actually confirm fuel in bowls present.
 
marco68 said:
crank sensor? does it have one? i just replaced one on my plow truck. did not think a 68mgb would have one. do you know why i get a better response when i take out the one spark plug? wires crossed? i will check. there is gas flow. i did put in a new cap and rotor. to no avail. it turns over great with the new starter. but just does not want to fire.

might be wires crossed - Can caps on B's be 180 deg out?
 
BTW firing order is 1324 so should be easy to count the wires
 
Firing order issues aren't going to explain died in the driveway and no re-start.
Might if rotor puked, then cap went on with wrong firing order.

In business, you would not believe how many folks could not change a distributor cap without screwing it up.
Pull the cap, wire in place on cap, install new cap, orient the old cap to look rotaionally just like the new one, change one wire at a time.

If you're going to do wires too, do the first part, THEN go get the new wires out and change one at a time.
 
wires are in order. new cap, rotor. how would one check timing if it doesn't run? also, thinking about the points. i did clean the contacts and it does spark in there. but still no starting. could the points still be inadequate. just saying that, with the ignition on and engine not rotating, doesn't that muck up the points? it was left on for 10-15 min.
 
Yeah, it can overheat them. How do you know you have spark?
Did you remove or take the wires off the points?
 
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