TopDawg_43

I may be new to the site, but I am not new to cars. I have been lurking the boards, since I've found it.

A little background about me and the beater. It's my 87 22r Yota with 325k on the clock. My dad bought it brand new back in 1988. And he drove it until he passed back in 2000. He taught me how to drive a 4-speed in it. When he passed, I've kept it going, which was not that hard to do. Mostly because I have not had anything but simple issues with it, until now. And because the lack of issues, I don't know that much about how to troubleshoot it.

The issue I am having is, I have no spark. I have found a few threads about it, and I have followed the advice giving in all of them, but the beater still does not run. So I though I'd post hoping I can be lead straight to my issue.

One day, I left work at break to get some grub. The truck went about 20 feet and it died. I tried to start it and nothing. After doing some basic troubleshooting, I find that I have no spark. After doing more checking, I find that I don't have any spark coming out of the coil. So I did some basic maintenance and changed the cap and rotor. And I figure the pickup-coil is bad, so I change that too, setting the air gap, properly, and nothing.............

Than I change the coil, and it acts like it wants to start for a few seconds, then it died again. And once again, I have no spark.

Now keep in mind, the whole time I am checking all these parts and they are checking as good but it still has no spark.

I now assume the ignitor is bad, and I do the GM conversion. And low and behold the truck fired up and ran for 10 seconds, and died again. Doing some checking again, and guess what............NO SPARK

The only thing left is the distributor. So I install a new one, and still NO SPARK.

One clue, that I know has to have something to do with whats going on is, when I try to start it, the neg post on the battery gets hot, and I know that's not right. I look to see if there is an obvious ground broken, but I don't see anything.

HHHHHEEEEEELLLLLLLPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!


Thanks in advance
TopDawg_43~


What is that ----->

TopDawg_43

On man, that sucks!!


55+ views and no replies.

I don't care if I have to install an aftermarket ignition box, I'm not getting rid of my truck. It will run again some day.

swampfox

if there is a large draw on the battery when starting, the voltage might be dropping to the ign. system. if the battery cable is getting hot i would look into that. the two might be related.

yayfortrees

I second that. Make sure you test the battery voltage, both unloaded, and under load. If it is low, see if it will take a charge. Assuming that checks out, you definately want to check all the power cables / wires. I can see a cable getting warm if the truck was being cranked for a long time, but it really shouldn't if everything is in good condition. (in theory)

You should have a smaller body ground coming off the negative terminal, and attaching to the body. There should also be a large, heavy cable attaching to the motor block. Check both of these for continuity, and check that all of the connections are tight, clean, and not corroded. Replace the entire wire(s) / connector if necessary. You might even have to change the battery terminal as well.

Do pretty much the same thing on the power wires, checking the continuity, connectors, etc. Search fuse box supply wire, there's a really good thread on it. I doubt it is what's causing your no spark condition, but it's a good idea to replace it anyway.

If you still have no spark after that, come back here and we'll find the next step.

TopDawg_43

Will do

TopDawg_43

Alright, I have checked all my wires. I replaced both post, and I checked all connections. And all checked out. But still no spark.

And the neg post does not seem to be heating up anymore. Any ideas? I just don't understand it. It seems as if I am losing the ground somewhere. I am getting power to the coil and module.

Thanks agian

TopDawg_43

I am going after the fuse box supply wire, after reading the write up. I will let y'all know how it goes.

STEWY54

I had a similar problem with my 93 T-100. no spark all of a sudden and I replaced everything. Plugs, wires, cap, rotor, coil, ignitor, plugged another computer in, ect.

Turned out to be the mass air meter shorting out. i popped the cap and re-soddered some contacts and everything went back to better than normal (prolly partly because of all the new tune up) but that fixed the problem.

I would check your mass air. just unplug it and see if it starts. it will run like crap but will spark if that was the problem.

TopDawg_43

I have a carbed 87, no MAF. Thanks anyway.

TopDawg_43

I replaced the fuse box supply wire with a 6 gauge wire. And still nothing.


HELP!!!!!!!!!!!

yayfortrees

Hmmm, do you have a multi-meter? Do you have the service manual? You're just going to have to check the resistance from every component you can. Check continuity on all the wires that could be related to it.

It's hard to diagnose a truck when it's not in front of you.

swampfox

try checking the voltage to the ign. system with key on. then check it when when cranking . it it should not drop much. i ran into this problem on a dump truck , i had to add a relay to solve it.

TopDawg_43

Well, gentlemen, I found the issue and solved it, kinda. The issue was I had the control module wired up wrong. I got it straighten up, and it fired up. But it was back-firing when ever I hit the gas. So, it will not rev. When ever I try to rev the engine up it sputters and back-fires. But it will idle just fine.

That is, until the raditor blew up............

So I need one of those.

yayfortrees

I hope that's all you need. Do you think you might have a blown head gasket? How quickly did the radiator blow? Was there any white smoke in the exhaust when it was idling?

I do hope that it's something more simple than that. Now that you have spark, is the ignition timing set?

TopDawg_43

No, I don't think the HG went. No it was not smoking. The radiator has been suspect for a while. It was leaking pretty a few months ago. But I could not replace it because I was not working. I got it to stop leaking using stop-leak. But that is only a band-aid. So when it blow the top tank off, it didn't surprise me.

Yes I have the timing set, but it still sputters and back-fires when ever I rev the motor. I started a new thread about that. Here is the link.

yayfortrees

Ok, cool, I'm glad it's not the HG.

Stop-leak? Oh man, I hate that stuff. It should almost be illegal, with the exception of using it to get you out of a life or death situation. It would be fine if it stayed in the radiator and didn't go anywhere else, unfortnately, all of your coolant passages are filled with that junk now.

I'll go check out the new thread and see if I have any ideas.