PINTO CAR CLUB of AMERICA
Welcome to FordPinto.com, The home of the PCCA => General Help- Ask the Experts... => Topic started by: Randy Holman on July 27, 2015, 01:12:13 AM
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So just did a 2.8 to 2.8 swap out of a ranger. Have it all ready to go except it won't start. It's cranking and every now and again it'll act like it wants to start but falls on its face. We have a fuel since we put in a electronic fuel pump. We have spark, testing that with a test light. Have messed with the timing numerous times, reset the timing, pretty much everything. Is there anything else to troubleshoot or something I am missing. Thank you
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Hi, Check all grounds, especially the ground for the motor to the frame, almost sounds like a broken motor ground.
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First thing I would do is to check the ground like 78 starsky said, next I would remove all the plugs and make sure #1 is up on compression stroke and make sure the dist rotor is pointed to #1 , hook a timing light to that wire and have someone spin the engine over with the key switch, set to 10degrees BTDC and lock down , test after to make sure , if you do not get any spark you may have a short in the bypass wire , gives hotter spark when you crank , next make sure the coil wire is in the middle of the distirbitor , had a few bozos in the past swap it to a plug wire on me in the past , it will ack like it wants to run so badly but never will,
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Have done all and still not going. I have fuel, spark, and timing is right. What could be next?
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If you got fuel and spark it should crank , guess you made sure the spark is on the compression stroke , not 180 off , seen that quite a few times , I ask that because you may have pulled the distributor out and use the pinto one , and last did you hear the engine run before you installed it ? The timing gear may have failed , but 90% of the time when they do the cam will not turn at all , or if the engine was overhauled they may have mistimed the gear , and last a clogged exhaust would stop it from running , I would look at the timing , or weak spark when cranking ,
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Thinking the distributor gears are different because I have the one from the pinto in the ranger engine. So tomorrow juts going to rebuild my distributor and put the ranger gear on it and hopeful that's the magic touch.
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The gears on the distributor are the same on the 2.8 pinto and ranger , the gears I am talking about are the ones that drive the cam , the orgenal gears were fiber and lasted from 50k to 75 k miles before they went bad , the replacements are made of aluminum and they last forever , but do you know the history on the engine , was the ranger wrecked or did it stop running before you got the engine out of it , ??
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If they have an EFI distributor for a 2.8 that may solve your issues. I was having issues with my 5.0 on the Mustang going to the roller and we popped one of these on and it went well and started right up. Yeah, looks like a Chevy part on your Ford, but works well and gives you a hotter spark!
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The EFI distributor has to have a computer to change the timing curve, without it it will only fire at bass timing , no advance , I have one on mine when I covered it to TBI injection , we just have to wait for more info from him to find what cure we can diagnose his car sickness, after all we are the the pinto Doctors 😜
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The EFI distributor has to have a computer to change the timing curve, without it it will only fire at bass timing , no advance , I have one on mine when I covered it to TBI injection , we just have to wait for more info from him to find what cure we can diagnose his car sickness, after all we are the the pinto Doctors 😜
Yeah, need more info. But it's not a bad mod :)