Car just stalled while driving .

[75LandYacht]

OK fellas.. me again. I'm not sure if I should be posting this in the "engine/drive train forum" or the electrical and ignition forum. Here's what happen yesterday.
Well my daughter and I were driving to Home Depot, The car just shut off! I coasted to the side of the road and pop the hood. After sitting for about 20 to 25 minutes she fired back up, hesitantly but did start. It has never done this before. I checked the ignition I had spark, check the fuel filter and carburetor and had fuel. As I said earlier she was hesitant on starting but did.

 

[75LandYacht]

So I headed to my local auto parts store instead of Home Depot to see if they could help, while at the traffic light that turns into the parking lot of the part store the car stalled again. Only about 10 minutes since the first incident. The parts manager and a couple guys came and helped me push it into the parking lot..

 

[75LandYacht]

Having no idea where to start troubleshooting, I remember a fellow Mopar enthusiast telling me about the ECM's going bad without notice, The part store happen to have one so I replaced it. The car had sat almost 30 minutes from the time installed till the time I replace the ECM. After getting everything reconnected she fired right up. Instead of continuing on my trip to Home Depot I went straight to the house. Once I pulled into the driveway she stalled again.

 

[75LandYacht]

The car was at normal operating temperature when all this happened, I have been driving the car most of the day without issue . Temperature outside was in the mid 80s and she ran fine all day until the first incident. With Carlisle only a few weeks away I'm as nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof. Pardon the southern expression. Lol Carlisle is almost 4 hours for me and I would really hate for the same type of scenario to happen on the interstate in the middle of nowhere.

 

[75LandYacht]

I guess what I'm really looking from you guys for our some ideas on where to start. Here's what I have in the garage that I was going to install my car before Carlisle anyway. 1. Tuneup parts plug wires cap and rotor. 2. Rebuilt Thermo quad carburetor from Summit. 3. ECM just replaced.

 

[75LandYacht]

I forgot to mention that in the trunk I had a can of ether/ starting fluid, she wouldn't even start using that, it seems that only after sitting for 20 minutes to a half hour and cooling down ,did you restart.

 

[75LandYacht]

So if you guys have any ideas on where I should start looking for the issue, or if you've had experiences like this that would be helpful and tell me what you did to fix it.. If I can't make it to Carlisle because of this issue I'm going to be very upset camper..

Thoughts????

 

[furyfinn]

Your coil could be in the end of it's road... Or the inginiton box on the firewall.

My .02

 

[75LandYacht]

Your coil could be in the end of it's road... Or the inginiton box on the firewall.

My .02

Thanks furyfinn, I did consider the coil as a culprit. But wouldn't an electronic part like that either work or not? I didn't think a coil would have intermittent service. A coil is an expensive, I'll replace that tomorrow. I thought I'd reach out to you guys first vice replacing each component Under the hood one by one. I'm not very good at troubleshooting things like this.

 

[75LandYacht]

Your coil could be in the end of it's road... Or the inginiton box on the firewall.

My .02

When you say ignition box.. isn't that the ECM on the passenger side of the firewall?

 

[furyfinn]

I had a bad coil once... When it warmed up, the car stalled. When it cooled down, I got a running car again. For a while, at least.

 

[furyfinn]

When you say ignition box.. isn't that the ECM on the passenger side of the firewall?

Yes. Some of those are bad even when new! I have Pertronix system in my vert, otherwise I would always keep a spare box in my trunk!

 

[75LandYacht]

Yes. Some of those are bad even when new! I have Pertronix system in my vert, otherwise I would always keep a spare box in my trunk!

Thanks so much for the advice. I'll replace the cool torrorrow. I'll pick up another ECM as well as a spare.

 

[traintech55]

It could be a number of things, before you start throwing parts at it do some simple checks in your driveway. there are three things an engine needs to run. Compression, fuel, and spark. Sounds like a spark issue. As soon as it stalls check for spark, if none do you have another electronic distributor? If you do plug it in and turn it by hand to see if you have spark, if not then the pick up coil in the dist. is bad. If you still don't have spark then take a test light and check both sides of the ballast resistor, should be bright on one side and dim on the other, (all four pins)if open then replace the resistor. If you do not have a bright test light on the in side to the resistor play with the ignition switch to see if that will help. As I said just throwing parts at it could get very expensive and any of the parts in the system could give you this problem.

 

[75LandYacht]

It could be a number of things, before you start throwing parts at it do some simple checks in your driveway. there are three things an engine needs to run. Compression, fuel, and spark. Sounds like a spark issue. As soon as it stalls check for spark, if none do you have another electronic distributor? If you do plug it in and turn it by hand to see if you have spark, if not then the pick up coil in the dist. is bad. If you still don't have spark then take a test light and check both sides of the ballast resistor, should be bright on one side and dim on the other, (all four pins)if open then replace the resistor. If you do not have a bright test light on the in side to the resistor play with the ignition switch to see if that will help. As I said just throwing parts at it could get very expensive and any of the parts in the system could give you this problem.

Great info.. I'll certainly give that a go. I don't have any spare parts, just the new wires, plugs, car and rotor I have to still put in. But no hard parts. I've did replace the ECM yesterday. Your right though, throwing money at part after part could get expensive. Thanks again for the input.

 

[1978 NYB]

Replace the coil. Buy 2 and keep the spare in the trunk. BTW, the ignition box is good....keep that in the trunk as well for a spare. I would also get a spare ballast resistor too. If you have all 3 of those items for a spare you won't be stuck on the side of the road because of ignition spark.

 

[Fratzog]

The Monaco had those symptoms a couple years ago and it turned out to be the fusible link. Apparently they don't always burn out at one time and can gradually fade away causing intermittent stalling.

 

[commando1]

On Formals, there's a wire coming off the battery that goes to a white fuse holder on the driver's side wheel well. Ive seen that fuse holder cause the same symptoms many times on Formals.

 

[65Fury440]

Check for voltage at the "+" side of coil with key on. If you have voltage here, and you just replaced the ECU, probably going to be the coil, or the pickup possibly.

 

[Big_John]

It sounds like a heat related ignition problem. It kind of points to the coil, but I would be surprised if it was the distributor pickup too.

To check the pickup, check the gap with a brass feeler first. Disconnect the distributor wire and check resistance between the two wires to the distributor. That should be 800-1500 ohms with 800 being nominal IIRC. That checks the pickup coil.

To check the reluctor, check the AC voltage between the two wires (still disconnected). Turn the engine over and you should have >1 volt. Yes, I said AC voltage. If it's less than 1 volt, replace the reluctor. It's rare, but it happens. If the resistance is wrong, change the pickup.

The other suggestions of bad fusible link etc. are very possible and should be checked.