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73 starts but dies

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I drove my 73 from my old house to new house. Replaced points with Pertronix ignition and flamethrower coil. 3 wire tach wasn't working and replaced that as well. Car starts but dies when key is released to run position. All fuses are good. After said problem I replaced solid state voltage regulater with stock voltage regulator with same results. Any ideas?

There are two circuits that supply power to the coil +. One is active at Run, the other active at Start. Sounds like you're missing the Run power but have the Start power. Do you have a voltmeter or test light?

  • Author

Have test light. Note:car was an auto converted at sometime to 4 speed. I have fixed some hacked wiring. What am I testing? I guess I could have a bad connection.

Check for power at the coil + terminal when the key is at Run or On. If there's no power, that's why the engine dies when you release the key from Start. If so, find the wire that has power when the key is On and connect it to the appropriate terminal on the ballast resistor. The ballast will probably have a B for battery molded in to it on that terminal. Then check for power at coil + again to verify.

Did you take out the ballast resistor when you did the ignition work? If so, did you connect the wires on either side of the resistor to each other?

Ballast resistor sounds right, did have same problem on mine, BUT also my ignition switch was bad so might wanna check that too

  • 3 weeks later...
  • Author

One connection was only wrapped and it came loose. I solder all connections and am now good to go. Thanks.

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