Hello there, My truck isn't getting spark and I dont know why. But let me introduce myself and my truck first. Cliff notes at the end.

I have a 1985 Pickup, 22r, lifted, ect. I bought the truck before I deployed in 2011 with intentions to build it big. Well, a year goes by and I buy all the parts I needed when my boots finally reached U.S. soil again. Well I drove the truck around for a few months because I got back in November and didn't want to build it in the winter in Northern New York. Come Feburary (2013) I was driving home from the gym when suddenly it stops running. Couldn't get it to fire back up. Changed cap, rotor, plugs, and wires. Nothing.

Well, I decided since it wasn't running anyways, I might as well pull it off the road and do the lift. I only got a few hours a week to work on it, so it took me up until June to get it back on wheels.

But I still had the issue of not running. So I messed around with it for a while and narrowed it down to the igniter box. So I took an ignition coil off a friend's old Dodge, wired up an MSD ignition control box, and it fired up no problem. Well, the lift wasn't fully done, I still had to mount shocks, break in the springs, and do a lot of little things, but it could move under it's own power. So I drove it on the street for the first time from the barn I built it in to Base, about 5-6 miles. I didn't really drive it besides that. Then a few weekends later I drove it from Base, back to the barn. Started getting a little hot, so I just turned up the heat and opened the windows, cooled it down.

Well, on my way back from the barn, it starts smoking bad about a mile down the road. The motor has 325,xxx miles, so it always blew a little smoke. But I knew instantly it was the head gasket, you could taste coolant in the air. Well, I was a few weeks away from going to Korea, so I decided to just let the truck sit until I got time to fix it. Now it's November 2013, my orders for Korea got changed and I'm going to stay in the U.S. for a while longer, but still moving across country. I moved to Virginia for a while, then to Florida. March 2014 I finally got a chance to head back to NY, load my truck on my trailer, and bring it down to Florida with me.

In April I pulled the engine out to start the re-build. I bought everything from LCEngineering to do a rebuild, and de-smog with a weber carb. After about a month everything was done and the engine was back in the truck before memorial day. Go to start it for the first time, nothing. No big deal, it sat for a while, I'll just replace some normal parts. Plugs and wires were done with the re-build along with an optima red top battery since mine was still under warrenty, so I put a new cap and rotor, nothing. Ok, it's only $20 or so for a new coil, lets try that, nothing. Well, I'll just go through the trouble-shooting procedures for the MSD box. It didn't work. No problem, still under warrenty. Got a new one hooked up, tested it by hooking it up to the coil, running the main coil wire close to a ground, and shorting the signal wires together and apart, it's working fine. Great, put it all together, nothing.

Pull the top wire from distributor , put close to ground, turn over, nothing. Well, a distributor is the last part I haven't changed, I'll just fork over the $100 for a new one. Got it on, hooked up, and ready to hear it fire up, nothing. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME, EVERY SINGLE FREAKING PART IS BRAND NEW. Ok, gotta calm it down, maybe it's the wiring. I'll go over everything. Nope, it all looks good. I'll double check, yup look's good. I'll repeat this process 9 flipping times, THE WIRING IS GOOD. So, I've come to the conclusion that maybe it's the distributor being bad from the factory, I'll try another one. NOTHING. Ok, I'll check the insides of it. I'm getting 163 ohms resistance between the wires, FSM calls for 140-180, beautiful. I'll check the airgap, maybe it's too far out. Book calls for .008-.016. I was on the higher side around .014, So I decided to move it in. I set it at .008-.009, as close as the FSM recommends. Try it out, FREAKING NOTHING. NO FREAKING SPARK IS GETTING TO THE ENGINE. IT'S BEEN LIKE 2 FREAKING YEARS AND I PUT 10 GOSHDARN MILES ON THE TRUCK. IT'S GOT A COMPLETELY REBUILT ENGINE, AND EVERY SINGLE PART IN THE IGNITION IS BRAND FREAKING NEW AND IT WONT FREAKING START.

Cliff notes:
-Engine re-built
-No Spark
-Brand new plugs, wires, cap, rotor, distributor, coil, MSD box, and battery.
-Again, litterally everything is brand new, and this is the exact same setup it was running on before the head gasket went out, so I know it worked at one point.
-I've narrowed it down to the fact that the magnetic pickup in the distributor is not sending the signal the MSD box needs to hear for it to send the spark to the coil, just don't know why.
-Got in trouble for putting bad words in. Edited, but you probably know what words were changed lol.

This is kind of an advanced issue. I'm not an idiot, and I was a professional mechanic for nearly 5 years. This is the first time I could not narrow down an issue for the life of me. I've got about $16,000 put into this truck, so I'd rather get it running than lose all that money parting it out. I'll try to add pics.

 

Before picture:


How it looks now:

 

Have you checked all fuses? You didn't by chance have a not-so-helpful rodent chew through a wire someplace?

 

THE WIRING IS GOOD!!! jk, I don't have any fuses that really could go bad. I've desmogged the truck, it has a mechanical fuel pump, and the MSD box has a simple wiring harness with internal fusing, and thats all hooked up right.

 

Are those the rear fenders that I sold you?

 

Holy Freaking Deja Vu batman! I just posted this same topic earlier today as well. Same thing here fresh rebuild, new everything including wiring everything is in spec. No spark at all. Did you check for spark from the ignition coil wire going to the distributor btw? Let me know what you find to be the cause because I am stumped like never before. I thought the vehicle that I hated the most was my 88' isuzu trooper when I had that piece, now I'm not so sure...

 

Subscribed for sure.