Wanna help diagnose a crank no start? You know you do...

[ecgreen]

Truck 89 BII.

Whats up:
- I rebuilt upper end of a used motor.
- Wiring harness worked fine with last motor, but old motor was overheated
- Cranks fine, but does not attempt start, no back firing, just hear pistons moving air and normal starting sounds
- I have 40psi at the fuel rail
- I have spark, but the spark is orange not blue
- I tried starter fluid in the throttle body, but no difference
- Pretty sure I am good with initial timing, and plug wires (new dist cap, roter and wires btw)

What do I look at next?

Any help appreciated.

 

[rusty ol ranger]

TFI.

 

[ecgreen]

WOuldnt I have no spark with a TFI problem?

 

[Dirtman]

TFI module...

 

[ecgreen]

I have another distibutor on the shelf. Does it make sense to swap it out and see or should I do more diagnostics?

 

[rusty ol ranger]

No need to pull the whole distributor.

Just get the 5 dollar TFI tool and swap TFI's between the two.

Heat eats the modules. If you overheated it and now you got this, itd be my #1 suspect.

 

[ecgreen]

No need to pull the whole distributor.

Just get the 5 dollar TFI tool and swap TFI's between the two.

Heat eats the modules. If you overheated it and now you got this, itd be my #1 suspect.

Yeah, but I can swap the distrib out in 5 min. The TFI module is the plastic plug deal on the back right?

 

[RonD]

Ether(starting fluid) has a much lower ignition point than gasoline, which is why its a good starting fluid
So it would/should at least fire if there is even a weak spark at the right time

So my guess would be distributor is 180deg off, assuming you used the crank pully's timing mark, so rotor is pointed at #5 when #1 cylinder is on compression stroke

 

[ecgreen]

Just went out with the other distributor, found TDC, redid the wires and nothing, same condition. I suppose its possible that both TFIs are bad, but I had one working in the last engine.
I found TDC by holding my finger over spark plug hole #1 and having someone bump it.When it blew my finger out, I figure that is compression. The harmonic balancer was pointing to TC. Then I lined the cap up with the rotor and called that terminal spark plug one and put the wires on according to the book in a clockwise order.

Did I do it right?

 

[ecgreen]

thanks for the help BTW you guys are freekin great

 

[adsm08]

WOuldnt I have no spark with a TFI problem?

TFI issues can cause a weak spark too.

 

[ecgreen]

OK....after I installed the new distro I forgot to plug it in LMFAO!!! She fired right up!!! She smoked pretty good, but is running clean now

 

[RonD]

Good work

 

[ecgreen]

So for those looking to this thread in the future, I do believe it was the TFI, as I did have the timing correct of the first distributor I used.

Thanks guys!