<VV> dwell meter setup

[Larry Forman]

At 08:38 PM 3/20/2004 -0800, christopher d czepyha wrote:
>Please forgive the stupid ?
>
>I have a digital dwell meter, and have used it dozens of times before.
>
>But today I have brain freeze.  How do I hook it up.  I had it set to -
>distributor, + ground.  And it reads 56.
>
>The patient is a 65 pg/110.  Carbs are from another running car
>65/110/4sp
>The lender vehicle has to be cranked for 40 sec if it has not been run
>for a few days.
>
>It would not start today, gave up after about an hour.  I was able to
>verify gas is getting to the carbs (undo the inlet nut and gas comes
>out).  But if I pump the gas pedle I do not get gas mist, nor do I hear
>them pumping.
>The gas is running out of a can.
>
>I checked for spark.  Put an inductive timing light on, and It does
>flash.  Dwell was unreadable, timing check could not be done.
>
>My plan of attack for tommaro.
>1.  Verify the dwell.
>2.  Take the carb tops of  and check for crud in the carbs.
>3.  Re-sync the carbs for this vehicle.
>
>Thanks to all.

Hi Chris,
Some of the dwell meters require one lead to be placed on the 12 volt 
battery terminal and the other one on the negative lead of the ignition 
coil, since the points ground that negative terminal.  Try that and see if 
you are closer to 30 degrees.

Take off the air cleaners and twist the carb cross shaft and see if you get 
a good strong pump squirt.  If not, you are getting nothing into the float 
bowls or the accelerator pump rubber cup is shot.  You could have something 
plugging the main jet or the floats hanging high for some reason.  It is 
possible the carb inlet stones are plugged.  Some people try to carefully 
blow through them and see if anything comes through.

In checking for spark, you can pull back one or more rubber nipples around 
the spark plug wires at the distributor cap and using a well grounded clip 
lead on one end and a straightened paper clip on the other, move it close 
to the distributor spark plug lead and you should see the spark jump to the 
paper clip as you get close.  If nothing, then you likely have no spark.

-- Larry