Thread: Help?!

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Ok, so here goes. I have a 78 trans am with a 400, and HEI. About a week ago, the reverse gear went out. Fine and all, a new transmission later, now the car will not start.

So heres what we have deduced so far.
Tore the carb off, it needed to be rebuild anyways. It gets plenty of fuel, and squirts into the venturis.

Coil and ignition control both tested bad, replaced those. The distributor hold down was loose, and you could turn the dist. either direction about 30 degrees. We have spark, and the engine turns and tries to fire. Never enough to actually start though, just enough to get my hopes up.

The biggest thing is that a week ago, it was running fine with little or no startup hesitation. Is there something I'm stupidly forgetting?

Thanks for any help!
Zakk

Bump

either someone mobbed your car while you were changing the tranny.... or you got the wrong torque converter in there..... if the torque converter nose piece is too long it'll bing up the engine and keep it from starting.... i'd check just to be sure.... you dont want to tear up your tranny, torque converter or flexplate...

Does the motor turn, and if so does it sound like it's draggin? Which 400, Olds or SBC? First I would make sure you didn't get a wire crimped between the block and the tranny when you installed. Fairly common occurence, if all your wiring looks like it's supposed to I would do as thesals suggested and check the torque converter next. That will bind everything up and keep it from runnin. You may even have the correct converter in but not have it seated in the pump correctly. Whenever you swap automatics make sure that the torque converter moves freely after you tighten the bell housing bolts. The converter should have free play in it. If it doesn't then you either have the wrong converter or it's not installed into the pump properly. Those are the 2 places I would start. Keep us informed.

Well when reverse failed in tranny the car sat for about 3 days. Seeing that reverse was the only thing wrong with the car, i figured i would drive it to a buddies house to do the swap there (I live in an apartment complex and he has a garage) Anyway we go out to start it and no fire. The motor turned over with ease, and she acted like it was going to start. So we call a wrecker to get it to my friends house. We get the car there and before we were going to swap the tranny i wanted to get the motor running again. So i started running down the checklist

1. Spark - Weak spark so we replaced the coil
2. Control Module - Tested bad so replaced
3. Carb was rebuilt (POS Q-jet)

Still nothing, then we found that the distributor hold down was loose and the distributor was turning on its own. So that is fixed and the timing is good, but not sure because i cant get it running to put a light on it.

The only things i can think of that would go bad from a car just sitting for 3 days is either the coil, fuel pump, or ignition module. And all these have been checked or replaced.

I have never seen anything like this before.
Thanks in advance guys

Start with the basics. Remove no. 1 plug, bring the piston to TDC and check that the balancer timing mark mates with the mark on the timing cover (two piece balancers have a habit of spining on the hub). Then make sure that the rotor is pointing to no.1 on the cap (remember that no. 6 is 180* across the firing order and at TDC at the same time - the only difference is the camshaft position and compression stroke). If the distributor hold down was loose, the distributor may have jumped a tooth or two.
If everything checks out, turn the engine over by hand with the dist. cap off - first in a clockwise direction, then in a counter-clockwise rotation to check if you have a lot of play in the timming chain. Lots of crank rotation with no distributor movement means timming chain problems - not unheard of in a Pontiac 400.
Good Luck, keep us posted.

Could something be intermittent with the neutral safety switch or wiring?

Well that has been my fear from day one....how come your first gut feeling is always right?.....well i will dive into tonight and let you guys know when i know something.
thanks again guys.
stupid panchos....

Well, it runs again!
Turns out that when I took the distributor cap off, I found two of the tips were snapped. New cap and it fired right up!

Thanks for the help fellas!

haha... its always that little something that you forget to check that ends up being the problem, and ya think its somethin so much worse