Adrenolin

Well I did a few things this morning and went to start the car. It turned over but wouldn't catch. Was obviously getting enough fuel as 30 minutes before that we discovered a fuel leak which sprayed from the carb clear back to the trunk. Got that fixed and cleaned up then gave it another crank. Still no go so check the wires.. no spark. Three of us went through the MSD setup 4 times and everything checked out fine except that I found only 4 volts going to the distributor from the MSD box but full 12 volts into the box. Wound up calling MSD who took me through everything we had just done except he had me jumper the distributor wires at the box while holding the coil wire near a ground. Got spark! Checked voltage on the 12v switched feed for the MSD box and got 12v but when cranking to dropped to 1 volt!

My setup is quite different from most. The MSD box is in the trunk along with the battery, solenoid, etc. Main fuse panel under drivers dash which goes back to provide 12v switched power to another fuse panel in the trunk which is where the MSD 12v switched feed is plugged into. Typically it goes to the ignition switch. The problem here is the trunk panel was 12v only in the ON position and not in START position as I discovered. Back to the main dash panel, a quick change to a terminal with 12v in ON & START and it came alive! Fired right up and sounded great. Thanked the MSD tech for helping out.

Restarted it at ~ 1k idle checking for leaks then slowly took it up to 2k rpm for a break in. No tapping or anything and as started already it sounded great. At ~8 minutes into in the lower rad hose blew off! again... 6pm start of a holiday weekend. Everyone closed early until tomorrow morning. I'll be replacing the aluminum rad hoses for black rubber ones in the morning.

All in all it was a fun day. The engine lives and sounds strong so I'm quite happy. Tomorrow I'll have this fixed and running again. It's getting closer every day!

Canary94GT

Awesome. I've heard MSD support is very helpful, but luckily haven't had to use them yet.

Same thing happened to me with the lower radiator hose... except it came off while driving and I didn't know until I reached my driveway, the car died, and smoke came out from under the hood. Everything was soaked under there. Fortunately it was all water and all seemed to be ok.

Adrenolin

I had my fathers 72 AMC out last month and parked it out front. I guess the upper rad hose blew off while parked there.. there was no sign of fluids coming down the road but right under the car. I bought a replacement and felt bad... until I saw the hose. It hadn't blown off but instead blew through. I'd say its likely to be the original hose from 1972! Was so soft that it felt like jello.

MSD support answered the phone after 2 rings and the issue had been resolved in 10 minutes. The gey was very helpful, polite and not rushed at all. Great service rep!