Figured I'd put this under the 84 section. I've got a 1984 toyota pickup extra cab and have been building it up since august last year. I'll give a short story about what happened and why it won't start up. Got breakfast at a restaurant one morning last week, jumped in the truck and she started right up but died after about 30 seconds. It's had starting and charging issues since I got it but it's never up and went out. Had it towed home and started with the basics. Fuel to the carb, spark from the plugs and distributor, made sure the time chain hadn't jumped a tooth and checked all my fluids. I had spark to start with but after a few days I checked the plug wires again and nothing from the distributor. I ran resistance and checked the vaccum chamber and the distributor was shot so I replaced it and followed all th directions in my FSM to make sure I had everything matched up correctly to the tee. I went to start it up and she turns over (which she did before as well) but it has a stutter in between cranks and won't start. I've got pretty good battery power so I just don't know what the deal is. Any help or opinions would be greatly appreciated.

 

Sounds like the timing is off. I'm presuming that the "stutter" between cranks is a spark plug lighting mixture at the wrong time.

 

Yea I thought that may be an issue and I checked out that distributor again as well just to make sure and it's not hitting so I'm not getting any spark out of it. Must have put it in wrong for sure

 

Ohm your ignition coil, if it reads 'OL' it's bad. Ensure stable key power to coil. Check for loose wires in the ignition circuit and on the ignition switch. Check all ignition system connectors for corrosion/looseness.

Did you change anything or modify/repair the truck before this occured? Ignition timing? Ohm plug wires? Clean up your cap/rotor if needed?

 

Yea I checked the coil and I was getting the right amount of ohm off of it or resistance. Didn't do anything to the truck accept change out the distributor cap and the wires and plugs. But the trucks been going for months so I wouldn't think it was any of those besides the destributor