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A friend has a 78 Luv. Got a new engine for it and now it won't start! replaced wires, coil, regulator, resistors, altenator, etc. Have power to all the wires. Checked distributor. Engine turns over but get now spark from the plugs. Yes, it's getting gas in the carb. It's getting very frustrating. Once it gets running, we can start putting it back together so it can be driven on out of my garage.In short, we need help. We have the feeling that we're missing something fairly simple, but can't figure it out.
Any ideas??????

is the distributor's gear off 180*??

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-Old ride-82 Luv diesel 5spd with some upgrades
-Past rides-82 Sierra, 78 Coupe De'Ville, 91 2dr Blazer, 86 RX7, 86 Porsche 944T (rear-ended and totaled)
-Curr. rides- 1970 Ford LTD 4dr, 390 4Bbl, 2nd owner! With a few Extras 00' Civic beater...

I just fought a 180 out disti gear on a truck myself. It took a lot of troubleshooting before I finally checked. Don't trust the top of the distributor to tell you where it is pointed. Even though the shaft can only go in one direction, the gear could very well be aligned wrong. I think my case came from the prior owner doing a sloppy job swapping the head. They had the timing mark on the pulley lined up, but the disti gear was pointing 180 out. Then when the cam was lined up, it was backwards.

To save yourself some time tearing things apart and checking the alignment, just swap the plug wires, #1 for #4 and #2 for #3. If that is it, you should get some fire somewhere.

If you have verified that you are absolutely not getting spark, then you must have some electrical fault somewhere. This would be my quick hit list:

Wire the coil + side to the battery directly as a temp check. Don't leave it like this for long, bypassing the resistor will eventually cook the coil, but a few minutes won't hurt. Wire to the resistor if you want to be on the safe side, but straight to the coil will get a bit fatter spark.

Wire from the other side of the coil to the distributor directly.

Double check the points, condition and gap. They are critical to getting spark and it doesn't take much to throw them off.

All you need for it to fire up is power to the coil and some gas in the carb. If the coil, wires, plugs, and distributor are good, the alternator can be off the truck and it will fire. Narrow it down to just the essentials.

One final thought, if you think you have fuel and spark and still can't get it to go, check the valve adjustment. If it is way off either way far enough it won't start. With a new engine or one you've never heard run, *any* adjustments could be off.

Thanks for the reply. We tried everything you said and you guessed it, no spark.

In the process we burned out the resistor. Go figure. We've narrowed it down to the two relays on the fender. There doesn't seem to be any power getting to the coil.????? Doesn't make sense, but somehow we feel there's a problem in the inignition system some where. but now we have to get a new resistor and find the relays and replace them before we can go any further. Where can we find the two relays???
They don't seem to be available in this area?? Any suggestions??
Again thanks for your earlier reply.

Dan

Just jumping power right from the battery shouldn't fry the resistor I wouldn't think. It occurs to me I didn't mention unhooking the existing wiring to the coil, but even that seems like it wouldn't cause any trouble. I've hot wired the coil on several trucks with and without unhooking wires and never had a problem. Could be it was just that resistor's time I guess, but that seems like a short someplace, maybe the points are stuck closed or somesuch. Did the coil get hot during any of this?

Part of the point of bypassing power to the coil right from the battey is to take those relays out of the picture. Its the Sherlock Holmes mechanic method. Eliminate everything else and whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truth. Once you can get it running, then troubleshoot the relays if they are even bad. Without the motor running those relays are very hard to tell what they are doing and Replacing them means rewiring standard relays to work or getting used replacements. I picked up one of them new in a pile of parts I got off ebay quite a while ago, but new ones otherwise don't exist. They do go bad, I'm just saying you want to get the motor to fire up before you go to the trouble of fighting with them.

When I was fighting with that 180 out distributor gear I eventually got the motor running with just the two main battery cables hooked up, one wire hooked from the bat to the coil, and one from the coil to the distributor. Everything else on the truck was disconnected from power completely except when I jumped power to the starter solenoid to crank it over.

Thanks for the tips. Now we have to come up with a resistor, and they're getting hard to find around here. As for the relay's? what type do we buy to replace the old ones. You mentioned rewiring new one's. Names and numbers please.

Thanks again for being so quick on your answers.
Dan