No spark, new distributor

[KenR]

This ones had me scratching my head all day.

My son was driving the Terc a few weeks ago and said it started running poorly. I went to move it into the garage to have a look and the engine would crank but not start. Did the usual fuel/ignition/compression investigation and discovered there was no spark at the plugs. Did the tests on the distributor as described in the manual and found resistance in the coil was on the high side. Figuring on a car with 320,000 miles the coil or ignitor was the likely culprit, I ordered a rebuilt distributor, new cap, rotor, plugs and plug wires (yes, I love this car).

Fast forward a week, parts arrive, I install everything and have the same problem - no spark. I have power to the distributor connector (black/yellow), coil and ignitor ohms are within spec, I've checked the spring loaded plungers in the cap and they seem to be connecting with the rotor and coil. Rotor turns when cranking the engine. Grounds look intact and check out between the engine and battery. I suppose I might've gotten a bad rebuilt distributor but that seems unlikely.

Question: At the electrical connector to the distributor I have a black/yellow wire and a black/red wire. I assume the distributor grounds to the cylinder head, black/yellow is switched 12v ignition, but what is the black/red?

Any ideas are appreciated!

[rer233]

Most likely, the unknown wire is the feed for the tach. My money's on a defective rebuilt dizzy (never did much care for rebuilt parts- would much rather have used OE.) One thing i really like about our cars is the whole ignition system is inside the dizzy- i always carry a spare whenever i'm doing any traveling (50 miles or more.) I'd suggest going to a pick n pull and getting a used part from a 3ac or 4ac (novas had 4ac's thru '89 i think.)

PS we ALL love our tercs- could you tell? Good luck!

[Mark]

I'm not sure if the ignitor has to be gapped on the 2nd gen Tercel. Maybe it's too far away from the rotor.

[keith]

Yes it has to be gapped, 0.010". If the center shaft bushing wasn't replaced or knurled, this could be why it doesn't work.

[Petros]

many of the rebuilt distributors are junk right out of the box. I would not use them. either replace the parts on your factory distributor, or go to a wrecking yard and get a used replacement. the factory distributor off of a used car (even a 30 year old one) is much more likely to be good and drivable than new aftermarket rebuilt distributor. I have owned something like 9 tercel4wd, and worked on many others, I have had 3 encounters with new rebuilt dists, all were bad. I have 3 or 4 spare used distributors, plus the 9 running cars I have owned, and the many others I have worked on, and never had a bad factory distributor, not even one. That is not to say they can not go bad, just the pure probability of my limited samples says: DO NOT WASTE TIME OR MONEY ON RE-MANUFACTURED distributors.

[tercel4wdrules]

I would recommend taking a spare distributor on long trips. I had a factory distributor fail on me - the shaft broke from the gear and stranded me right there. First time I had ever been stranded in a T4WD. I got towed and then swapped the distributor and all was great again.

[keith]

My distributor went bad after some 200k+ miles and I put in a reman from NAPA and it worked perfectly (but it wasn't cheap). Mine stopped working due to the center shaft bushing becoming to worn to maintain a stable gap for the ignitor.

[applewew]

Hey Petros!

Any chance you could sell one of those spare distributors?

[KenR]

Installed a second rebuilt distributor from Rock Auto and this one worked. In fact, it works so good the car is running better than it has since I've owned it. Guess the old one had been failing for quite a while.

Thanks for the help all!

[KenR]

Well, the car started running like crap again this week and from what I can tell the second reman distributor is going bad. Just like the first one, the shaft has noticeable side-to-side movement and I think that's keeping the ignitor from seeing a constant gap.

Guess I'll try and find a factory used one, or a new bushing and replace it myself.

Anyone here have a good used OEM distributor they'd like to part with?

[irowiki]

I have two used ones, not sure if good. They came in a box with my 87.