Posted by Clint Dixon [172.69.7.134] on Saturday, September 26, 2026 at 17:04:23 :
In Reply to: Re: Electrical Issue - Paging Tom Petroff posted by Tom Petroff (IL) [172.71.255.80] on Saturday, September 26, 2026 at 10:57:15 :
I took out the new set of points. They could not be bent to work as the arm is a "T" shaped cross section. The factory bend definitely was not correct. When out of the truck they never contact properly anyway. They are not flat together, or parallel, but touch at one point only. It was hard to see or even feel with the feeler gauge. The old points looked new. No transfer of metal at all. So back in they went.
It started right up and idled fine. Even revved up fine. Took the truck for a drive and no dice. Any load on the engine caused missing that acted like several cylinders. I could almost find a sweet spot with the choke open that helped a little - very little.
Was going to pull the carb and go through it as I replaced the hose to the fuel pump when I had that off earlier in the week and remembered that I found a petrified Japanese beetle in the hose partially blocking it.
Then I though I should check some other things first. Grounded out the coil wire and found that the spark jumps about a half inch. That told me that the coil, points, and condenser are working fine (now). Grounded out each plug wire at the plugs with a screwdriver. All had good spark to tell me the wires are good. #6 had the best spark of all. That was a red flag. I will get back to that.
Pulled the plugs and did a compression check. All cylinders between 106 and 112 lb. Proved there are no broken rings, damaged pistons, or burned valves due of the pinging I heard during the last vapor lock.
All plugs had a nice color and correct gap as they should as I changed them only a year and a half ago. All accept for one that is. #6 seemed to not be very tight as I was removing it. Once out, I found that its electrode was gone....insulator still there but electrode burned down to a stump. About .090 gap.
My gopher (Martie - don't tell her I called her that) ran to town and bought eight plugs of the same heat range. Kept the other five old ones (except the bad one) for spares.
Gaped and installed the new ones and took the truck for a drive. She ran great! I think I will take my NOS MoPar condenser back out and put the older Echlin back in that had been in there when this adventure all began.
I have never had one plug do that. I have forgotten to connect a plug wire in the past but that never caused a truck to run that bad. Either I never got that plug tight enough a year and a half ago and it was sucking air and running lean on that cylinder (insulator color did not indicate that) or it was a bad plug to begin with and the tip of the electrode finally burned off.
Why the truck ran perfect a couple of weeks ago when I parked it with an apparently functioning plug, and then hardly ran at all when I went to drive it again a week later with a plug suddenly going bad, I will probably never know.
Note to the new guys out there:
Even after 50 years of driving Power-Wagons they can still surprise and stump a guy. They are really cool trucks and they can be used regularly to do a lot of heavy work, but when you use one they require a LOT of attention.
As a wise man recently told me - "It is not the fixing. It is the finding."
Thanks for everyone's help!
Junior
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