Hey Im new to the forum and im hoping to get some help. My car is a 67 gta with a 390. I bought it from a fellow who didn't have time to fix it up and this car sat for 12 years he said. So anyways my problem is Im trying to get the car to run. Its turning over and i have 12 volts to the coil. I have fuel spraying in the jets in the carb to. Im not getting spark though. I have some pictures of the wiring mess that im dealing with. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Dan

Here is a few pics to show what im dealing with...

 

Wow, that is a nightmare but luckily it looks like most of the 'stock' stuff is there - VR, orig. type alt, dist., the accel coil just has + and - like a stock one. I would start from scratch as those twisted wires with no covering are an explosion waiting to happen with that leaky carb also.

Here's the wiring diagram,
http://hammar.dyndns.org/~djhamma/wiring/1967/

Your stock wires near the VR, dist, alt and solenoid should be there and the correct color. I'd order some underhood wiring from a mustang supplier like MU as an example since their pics are easy to link to, I also use NPD a lot, all of them will carry these parts. It'll cost you as much in time/money to do the wiring on your own and you probably won't find the same color coded wires to use.

The dist. vacuum is blocked off which will give you running issues when you do get going since the advance won't work like that. The vacuum on the dist. is probably shot but cheap to replace from a local parts store or mustang supplier. The vac. line should go from there to a ported vac nipple on your carb base (usually 2 one ported, one full vac).

Alt. harness -$30
http://www.mustangsunlimited.com/ite...asp?T1=AH20+01
Voltage regulator - $4
http://www.mustangsunlimited.com/ite...sp?T1=11445+01
gauge feed - $22
http://www.mustangsunlimited.com/ite...sp?T1=EGH11+01
I would get a shop manual in the same order -$45 worth it's wt. in gold, I use mine once wk. and keep all my notes in it - timiing setting, plugs, fluids used, vin #, serial numbers and highlighted info. that pertains to my model- torque settings, etc.
http://www.mustangsunlimited.com/itemdy00.asp?T1=SM3+01

It doesn't look like the alt. or batt. ground wire are connected to anything? They should go to a large bolt on the front rt. side of the block below the head and behind the alt. area (does on sbf, I'm guessing there's a hole there on the 390 also). Make sure you have sufficient grounds hooked up.
Jon

 

thanks a ton for the info and help. the battery is grounded to the intake manifold. but yea its a hell of a mess haha. I have the chilton book and ive been looking at the wiring diagrams, but they all have just one wire going to the base of the distributor, which i believe is the ground thats supposed to go to the coil. Except this distributor has 3 wires coming from it, a brown, orange and black one. which i have no idea what they go to. I imagine the black is a ground and orange positve to the coil and brown goes to the neg? Well ill clean things up tomorrow and maybe get some more info from you guys, thanks a lot for your info. Dan

 

wow with all those hacks I would get a new wiring harness, too many problems! Other than that I can't help you much, just study the wiring diagrams and take it one step at a time. Good luck!

 

What you need to do is throw away all the wiring and install new. Pricey, but easy and in the long run will save you from a nightmare. Personally, I'd throw away that yellow thing, too. It's old and not stock, so it will complicate your repair. Big yellow coils were fashionable before MSD became popular. Neither is really necessary.

 

First thing is get rid of that dura spark box. Get a cheep single wire dis. and connect it to the coil. Make sure that you have 12V to the coil when key in run and crank position (red/green wire to the engine) using a meter or test light. Then if it still doesn't start pull the main coil wire off put it on a test spark plug and hold the spark plug against the motor to see if you have spark while cranking.

Form the looks of the pic the coil trigger wire is going back to the car?? The big black wire looks like it was the old ground but cut at the valve cover right? But what is the "car" grounded to? I don't see a chassis ground.

Then you can sort out the rest of the mess..It doesn't look that bad..

 

Its hard to see from the picture but the engine block is grounded to the battery. So I take it it also needs to be grounded to the chassis. I will get a ground for that today. I ordered from virginia classic mustangs a new firewall to headlight harness for about a 150 bucks, should be here tomorrow. I hope that has everything i need wire wise. I will also pickup a single wire distributor and a new msd coil. The carb is seeping through the manifold gasket also so a new one of those as well, i don't wanna burn my car and house up lol. Also is the coil trigger wire the one that has a pulsing volts?

 

Next suggestion, chuck the Chiltons manual, compared to the shop manual I linked above it's too generic and covers too many years, the shop manual has tons more info. Make notes in it every time you change something, write down vin #'s, casting #'s (block, trans, rear), brake shoe sizes and keep it as the 'bible' to your car for yourself and the next owner.
Jon

 

Yea ill do that, the Chiltons is so generic i can see how it can be easy to miss things. Also today I picked up a new coil, new single wire distributor, carb mounting gasket, I have spark now and I know its almost about to fire, then my battery died haha. So i have it on the charger now. Im getting fuel spark and air now so i should be good. Whats weird to me is that I know the carb is missing some hardware on the side with the choke flap lever. Because when the choke is wide open it didn't want to fire but with it closed it wanted to.

 

Here is a few pics of what i did today. Whoever had the car before me had some kind of motorcraft orange box thing on the side, It didn't tie into anything so i removed it. I also pointed out the choke lever in one of the pics. and again thanks for all your help.