67 L-79 Cutting out

[Lawrence S.]

Hi All,

My car has about 1100 miles on it since the frame off.

I have breakerless ignition, otherwise everything else is original on the car. Friday while driving the car it died out at around 35 mph as if the ignition was turned off. The car came back to life and I pulled off the road when safe. I turned the car off and inspected for loose wires...found nothing. The car would not start back. I thought perhaps the coil was hot or the breakerless ignition was malfunctioning. I let the car sit for 15 minutes and wiggled the battery switch some.. the car started back and ran fine. I do have a Chinese made battery cutoff switch on the battery and though that was causing a bad ground. Took that off ran the car with no problems. I thought maybe that was it. I put it back on the car just to retest this switch and sure enough the car cut out again, but with the car idling I turned the switch off and the car still ran fine. So now I dont think that this switch could be the problem. Am I right or wrong on about this? I feel like I have a bad ground or something similar.

What do you guys think?

[Bob S.]

Re: 67 L-79 Cutting out

Lawrence - I encountered a similar problem with my '66 L-79 a couple of years ago....it would die suddenly and refuse to restart. In addition to the ignition not working, none of the interior lights, parking lights, etc worked either. I traced it to a loose wiring harness connection coming through the firewall under the driver's side of the dashboard. If your problem is more than just ignition, this may be something for you to check. Good luck! .....and please let us know what you find.

Regards,
Bob S.

[Rick S.]

Re: 67 L-79 Cutting out

I agree with Bob, had the same problem with my 67 L-79 and the problem was in the firewall connection.
Rick

[Lawrence S.]

Re: 67 L-79 Cutting out

I agree with your comments. I too had that thought, and checked the connection on the firewall, but did not remove it and replug it. I just wiggled the connection to see if it was obviously loose, but was not. I will look at this more thoroughly.

Thank you!

[Ray G.]

Re: 67 L-79 Cutting out

Hello;
Previous suggestions seem correct.
Disconnecting the battery with the engine running will allow the engine to run off the charging system.
The diodes in the 60s could take that kind of treatment. If that arcing treatment is done to a later model delcotron the diode trio or other internals will fail.
Hope this helps.
Ray

[Lawrence S.]

Re: 67 L-79 Cutting out

I went and inspected the wiring harness connection on the fire wall and the inboard connector at the top was cracked...connected pretty well but very so slightly loose. The bottom connection on the same harness will not snap 100% but in place at say 90%. But still connected good. I will see how this plays out before I tackle replacing the harness. The harness only has 1200 miles on it!

I drove the car last night and it had one very slight hiccup early then ran great. I am still looking for another culprit.

Any chance I could have bad fuel?

Thanks