maverick_4x4

I have an 86 4x4 pickup with a 22r. I have done a de-smog and weber upgrade on it about 6 months ago. the truck was running fine last night and then this morning I decided to clean up some messy wires and try and trouble shoot having no power to my dash (which went out all on its own about 9 months ago). I clipped some wires that didn't lead anywhere and now the truck will turn over but wont start. I can smell the gas coming out of the exhaust pipe (I figure I have flooded it trying to get it to start) so I don't think it is a fuel problem. My best guess is that I am not getting spark due to a tripped fuse or relay or something. I checked all the fuses I could find and none looked bad. the one other symptom is that the head lights wont turn on. all the running lights work fine but just not the head lights. I know a lot of older cars ran vital electrical components through the headlights so that reenforces my theory of electrical issue.

Any advice would be great. I hate taking things to the mechanic but I can not figure this out.

byr1051

Sorta general answer I would give to people who suspect they have lost spark, start at the actual spark plugs with tester or ground it to the block and check for good hot blue spark. If no spark then just start working your way back until you pick up some sort of electrical signal. Between a confirmed electrical signal and the loss of electrical signal lies your problem. Also if you want to confirm fuel, then just crack a fuel line at the carb or close to it, and it should be shooting out when cranked... just don't do fuel test and spark test at the same time. Hahaha

wyoming9

iTrader: (1)

I would look real close at the wires you just cut!!!

When cutting these wires you did have the negative battery terminal disconnected??.

Yes /No??

It is possible you caused a fusible link to open that might explain the problem.

The head lights are pretty much a stand alone system.

Unless this vehicle had a engine swap or lots of add on electrical devices all wires go some place there are no extra wires.

What ever the problem is it was caused by something you did!!!

mct75

You fool.

With that being said, try to trace things back until you figure out where the 12V stops. If you don't have a multimeter, get one.

maverick_4x4

First off thank for the input but I guess I should explain a little better. The only wires I removed were residual wires from the PO's sorry attempt to install an aftermarket radio. I didn't remove anything that was connected to anything just the mess of wires that were all hanging down under my dash. As such I didn't disconnect the battery because I didn't plan on cutting anything that wasn't useless.

I did start at the spark plugs and work my way back as best I could (must admit I hate electrical stuff) and I have suspicions with the distributor but I don't want to drop tons of money on a new distributor if that is not the real problem, but in fact just a symptom of a different problem.

I guess my real question was if anybody knew if there was a connection between the headlights and the ignition system. When I rebuilt my 1969 vw type 1 I had similar problems until I realized that the main power was run through the head lights and so the fix came down to replacing a sketchy headlight switch. I figured I had screwed up and when removing excess wires on my Toyota and with the symptoms I had suspectd a similar common problem with Toyotas but my searches are not yielding any evidence to support that theory.