hey fellas.. got a question for you all. my 84 extended cab was purchased by me under the presumption that the timing chain was broken. i charged up the battery and turned it over, only to find out it wasnt broken, and it was trying to start from time to time. tried starting fluid/fresh fuel to no avail. so i checked the firing order/plug wires... its 1-4-3-2(correct?) and it was 1-2-4-3, saw how screwed up that was, so i pulled the plugs and they looked like they had not been changed in 10 years. put new plugs/wires in and still no avail, so i pulled a plug, put it up against anything not alum. and checked for spark.... no spark, pulled another plug with the same result.

so. this leads to my question, what is the most common culprit that would cause a no spark issue? a dist. coil, or ignition wire off of the dist would be my suspect, priced them and man they're expensive! any advice/tips? i'd apperciate it, thanks!

 

Almost 100% garuntee its the Ignitor. We sell every single ignitor we get at work. They seem to have a high failure rate for some reason.

 

ok, thats the ignition wire off of the dist. correct? whats the average price for that? my local carquest wants $90. i havent priced napa yet.

 

m 86 had a faulty ignitor and it was 150 and oriellys and that was the cheapest i found.....i dont no where the thread was but theres a way to wire up a gm ignitor and they said it was like 15bucks

 

That may be for the coil, not the actual ignitor. You dont want to go aftermarket on this part. Find one at a local wrecking yard, or see if anyone on here has one. Interchange is 84-88 22R (carbbed only)

 

Most common causes of no spark are coil/ignitor/signal generator.

Make sure you fully test out each component before replacing them, especially the ignitor since they're rather expensive.

 

ok.. how do i go about testing each component?

 

whats wrong with after market? i plan on selling the rig anyways, i just need to get it running.

 

Factory service manual

Off the top of my head, the signal generator (the connector that comes out the side of the distributor) should ohm out between 140-180 ohms. The other component testing procedures are year and model specific.