I've been getting my car ready for a road trip, and I've been powering through, doing a bunch of work to get as many problems fixed a possible. There's a new problem that has popped up a couple of times. I'll go to turn over the engine and I'll get a click, and then the power will go out for something like 30 seconds to a minute. The alt light will go out, and it behaves as if the battery is disconnected. Once the power comes back on I'll try to crank it and the same thing will happen. Once I've tried this enough times, the car will start and everything will work as normal. I'm not sure if any of the recent changes I made could be messing with something. I put in a new battery, a new voltage regulator, a new starter solenoid, and hooked up an accessory fuse box. What's odd is that everything that's connected to the accessory fuse box looses power as well. It's hooked up to the positive side of the starter solenoid, and the negative goes to the starter solenoid ground. One thing that happened a while back is I used my car to try and jump a Honda. I wasn't able to get it started. Afterwards the Honda needed a new relay, and the Maverick needed a new voltage regulator and the old starter solenoid died shortly afterwards. I'm certain that the jumper cables were hooked up properly. I visited a mechanic and they pointed that my ballast resistor should be grounded. I'm using an MSD ballast resistor on a Duraspark 2 system. At first I grounded it to a power post that runs to the starter solenoid ground. Afterwards when I tried to start it, this was the first time I had the start up problem. I switched it to one of the bolts on the shock tower. It started up fine, but it had this problem one more time. I think this may have just been a coincidence. So, any ideas of what I should troubleshoot? I think I'm going to check if there's anything go on with the starter motor cable. I just gave the battery ground a good cleaning with acetone and a wire brush, so I think that should be pretty good.
You need to check it out further, coincidences will bite you in the butt... Sounds like the mechanic should go back to school, there is no such thing as grounding a ballast resistor(remember your smoke?). All the bracket does is hold part in place. Where does the black positive battery cable feed? Starter? Does it have a PMGR starter? I would not trust that battery quick disconnect as far as I could throw it.
It's not a PMGR starter. I'm not sure of what the details on the starter are, other than it's the same style of starter as the attached picture. Someone else installed it. The positive battery cable runs to the positive side of the starter solenoid. The battery is grounded to the engine block.
The only place on that solenoid that is a ground is the two bolts for the mounting bracket. I also agree with what was said before, no ground needed on the resistor, the strap your wire is attached to is already grounded through the mounting hardware. Probably doesn't make much difference but the positive cable is normally hooked up to the post closest to the battery. Other than that, sounds like a bad connection somewhere.
Just looked at your pictures again, your ground connection at the battery needs to be fixed. Having the disconnect mounted to a cheat parts store repair end byba 1/4 inch bolt designed to clamp a cable down is probably a large part of your issues. Those quick fix ends are problematic when used properly but as it is you have a failure in the making.
Duraspark needs/wants 12 volts. The '73 wiring harness has a resistor wire feeding the coil and by adding a ballast resistor on the resistor wire to feed the Duraspark is not 12 volts.
The positive cable is hooked up to the battery side of the starter solenoid. It's just difficult to see in the picture since the positive fuse box cable is covering it up. I'll have to find a better solution to the battery disconnect. It's been on the car for a while. Probably since 1999. I just took it to a shop today for my yearly transmission check up, and I had them do a electrical system check up. They said the battery ground and the starter motor connector was a bit loose. The tightened them and everything checked out as fine. I though I had tightened the battery ground better than that. With the ballast resistor, every coil I've tried will last about 3 days without one. I had a coil in there running without a ballast resistor for something like 15 years without problems. It eventually leaked and died. It happened to be on a road trip, so I eventually had to stop at a parts store and stock up on coils and switch them out after they died ever few days. At the time I was never clear on which coil could run without a ballast resistor. As of now I'm heading out on the road and hoping for the best.
G'luk on your trip.. Excessive dwell(coil "on" time) is generally what over heats coil & causes leakage. The resistor limits current applied to coil to keep it from over heating. Duraspark boxes are fed a direct 12v while coil receives voltage through a resistance wire of approx 1.4 ohms. AFAIK Duraspark has no dwell control. I suspect some coils have a high enough primary winding resistance to operate direct from 12v and not fail, not something I have researched. Newer systems(including Pertronix Ignitor II & III) do have dwell control that calculates coil on time. The Ignitor I does not have dwell control, requires original resistor(or resistance wire) be retained.
Yes, measure the resistance of the coil primary winding and compare to a known good stock coil. I've had aftermarket coils with a low primary resistance that would cause an electronic ignition to overheat so needed a ballast resistor. But if your coil has a high enough resistance you don't need, or want, a ballast resistor. "Ground the ballast resistor bracket." LOL Couldn't you find a longer (+) battery cable?
