I have a 74 Dodge 318 D100, and when I try and start it I have no fire. I have fire when I turn the key on but when I try and start it I lose it. I have replaced the voltage reg, ignition relay switch, the coil, distributor and the ballast resistor. The ignition switch was replaced about a year ago. I have no problem starting when I hook up a hot wire from the battery to the ballast. Any help would be appreciated very much.

 

pull the distribure out NOTE the way the rotor is facing. get a analog vom, set the **** to the lowest ac setting. put the wires in the wires coming out of the dist. spin the dist shaft, if its good coils in the dist the vom needle will move a little. if it not good coils the needle will not move. allso check the ohms of the coil. i think its 300-900 ohms.

 

thanks, will give it a try and see it that solves my problem.
Bill

 

Assuming you already checked the coil and it is ok. On that car I think, but am not sure, that the ballast resistor assembly is really two resistors (one used for starting while cranking and a second one for normal operation. The older cars (60s's and maybe early 70's) only had a single resistor used for normal operation which was bypassed during cranking. Maybe the normal operation resistor is NG or maybe you are not getting voltage to the coil in normal operating mode (bad connection somewhere in the path for normal operation or even a bad switch). From your description it is not clear what you actually bypassed or at what point you jumpered power to get it to run (input or output side of the ballast resistor and which resistor of the ballast resistor pair. Try making some voltage measurements with the key on and see if you can find the point where you are losing power at some point in the path to the coil. The connectors are also sometimes problematic on those cars.

 

sounds like a bad switch I have put several in my dodge d100s