Ford Duraspark no spark

Okay, i wired the truck from scratch and had it running. The other day i was doing some parking light work and had pushed a wire into the cab that was laying outside of the fire wall. During my testing, this wire burned and caused a small fire in the cab, it was only connected to the acc side of the ignition switch.
Since the fire, i replaced the ignition switch, starter solenoid, voltage regulator, duraspark module, distributor, coil, etc...basically every piece of electronics that is related to the starting of the truck. It turns over just fine, i am getting gas, but no spark. I have just spent the last 2 days trying different wiring configurations and for the life of me, can't get spark at the distributor.

Anyone familiar with electrical issues with duraspark ignitions? I was using a painless wiring harness diagram to make all this work. Any other images or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

doug

I don't have my camera with me, but I ran a wire from the fuse box (coil wire) to the coil (+), i then ran a wire from the (+) of the coil back to the starter solenoid (I). From the (s) side of the started solenoid to the IGN side of the switch. I have a battery wire running to the BAT side of the ignition switch. I then have an accessory wire for lights and stuff connected to the ACC side of the switch. From the duraspark module, I have the red wire going to the IGN side of the ignition, The white wire running to the (S) side of the starter solenoid switch, the green wire going to the (-) side of the coil, Blue and Orange wires going to the distributor and the black wire going to the distributor.

From that information, shouldn't it spark?

From the description there could be several problems...

hotwheels said:

I don't have my camera with me, but I ran a wire from the fuse box (coil wire) to the coil (+), i then ran a wire from the (+) of the coil back to the starter solenoid (I). From the (s) side of the started solenoid to the IGN side of the switch. I have a battery wire running to the BAT side of the ignition switch. I then have an accessory wire for lights and stuff connected to the ACC side of the switch. From the duraspark module, I have the red wire going to the IGN side of the ignition, The white wire running to the (S) side of the starter solenoid switch, the green wire going to the (-) side of the coil, Blue and Orange wires going to the distributor and the black wire going to the distributor.

From that information, shouldn't it spark?

Click to expand...

Not being really familiar with the system, I have attached a wiring diagram for a 70's style system... hope that helps and I'll see what else I can find to help you...

maybe this one is better...

sgtpontiac said:

Not being really familiar with the system, I have attached a wiring diagram for a 70's style system... hope that helps and I'll see what else I can find to help you...

Click to expand...

Hope it helps

I'm not sure what year ford you are working on, but you may want to consider getting rid of the duraspark altogther and get an HEI distributor. Speedway sells them for $100 - 150 these days. Then you can get rid of the spark box and coil and all that nasty wiring. I did it on a 302 from an '84 ford and it worked great.

Just drop it in, hook up the power and thats it.

Not that the short should have hurt the dist pickup, but that seems to be the only thing you have not changed. The dura spark dist works well with a MSD box. If you decide to upgrade.

I will have a look and see if they sell an hei that will work on a ford 400 motor.........I just want the damn thing to start and from what i am seeing, there is no reason for it not to start.......i was sure i was overlooking something simple, but now i am not so sure.

BigIrish said:

I'm not sure what year ford you are working on, but you may want to consider getting rid of the duraspark altogther and get an HEI distributor. Speedway sells them for $100 - 150 these days. Then you can get rid of the spark box and coil and all that nasty wiring. I did it on a 302 from an '84 ford and it worked great.

Just drop it in, hook up the power and thats it.

Click to expand...

I went to the parts store and bought a GM 4 Pin Module for an hei distributor, connected it in place of the duraspark, fired up on the first try.........[cl I can't tell ya how excited i am right now..........woooooooooooooooooooo

hotwheels said:

I went to the parts store and bought a GM 4 Pin Module for an hei distributor, connected it in place of the duraspark, fired up on the first try.........[cl I can't tell ya how excited i am right now..........woooooooooooooooooooo

Click to expand...

I vote for this too. Such a simple system, a couple of wires, a good ground, and it is done. It is best to bolt the module to something aluminum to dump heat.

You have to pay close attention to the ground, some are a little different and it's easy to lose the ground by removing certain bolts and not notice!!!

Just make SURE it's grounded!!

Never mind I didn't see you're last post, good deal!!![cl

hotwheels said:

I went to the parts store and bought a GM 4 Pin Module for an hei distributor, connected it in place of the duraspark, fired up on the first try.........[cl I can't tell ya how excited i am right now..........woooooooooooooooooooo

Click to expand...

It is almost like black magic how simple it works.


I did get ragged a bit on a Ford forum for suggesting this conversion, like they prefer a complicated and archaic ignition system or something?? [S

The GM module is a decent low cost alternative... if you have messed up wiring and don't want to use a factory harness, as not everyone has access to them at a reasonable price.

My experience has been that in a situation like this, a ground is overlooked, or you possibly burned the resistor wire in factory harness with a short. In the future, check to see that you are actually getting voltage in the "red/green-stripe" wire of the Duraspark harness while trying to start, if not, that is likely the problem.

Main thing is, you have it running!
LRR