It rained tonight and after it stopped i drove my car down a hill and i noticed the tach was reading zero, but all other instruments were fine. I let it idle down this hill and put it into 3rd and let off of the clutch and it came up to 2500 for a second, and then the tach died but the engine continued to run. So i came to this stop sign and it died, couldn't get it started so i pulled into a parking lot, ran down the street with my gas can and got some gas, put 2 gallons in and my friends drove by and tryed to jump me, after the choke was pulled, i put some gas right in the car. It fired after a few cranks for just a second. The tach still read 0 the entire time. Tried to push start, twice and still wouldn't fire. Locked it and left. Could it be wet coils? Or something else wet? Any help would be great.

 

Check for spark.If your getting spark then its not your coils.

 

Sounds to me like your trailing ignitor is probably dead man. Id bet money on it. The tach signal comes from the trailing coil, and if its not firing because the trailing ignitor isnt firing, you get no tach reading. So, heres what you do to test this theroy. Unplug the two ignitors on the side of the distributor and switch them. Go try and start the car. The tach should bounce while your cranking, but the engine probably wont start. If it does, the tach should be working. Shut it down, and then swap the plugs back. If the tach worked like that, your trailing ignitor is dead, and you need to replace it.



~T.J.

 

The trailing ignitor is probably the culprit for the dead tach, but it would not stop the car from starting or running, so there is something else wrong as well.



Check all the ignition stuff to see if any of it got wet.

 

Get a can of water dispersant (WD-40) and liberally spray all the dizzy and lead ends.

 

ok, i switched the the cords on the ignitors, and the engine runs fine and the tach works. but it idles low. So i've been running like that the last few days. But i noticed with the ignitors correctly hooked up, the car will run fine for about 2 miles then the tach will die, and i can hear this click from the fuse box, like when your engine dies after it starts with the key still in the "on" position. But none of the instrument lights come on like when it dies. It will continue to run for a while and if i get lucky, i can hit the gas a few times and the tach will just suddenly jump back up to normal. It's pissin me off, and im tired of runnin off of one ignitor and it's the wrong damn one. I talked to a "mechanic" and he said that the ignitor works or it doesn't. No in-between ****. thx for the help guys

 

Anybody???