1957 Thunderbird stops running after 1-2 seconds

Well I gave you a lot of information there but it is very simple. Touch the two terminals and divide that number by 12. Done.

That sounds like a great trip. I expect you will get a lot of waves and honks. People love seeing these old thunderbirds (which you don’t see often).

Hey I forgot to mention very important, check the positive ignition wire that feeds power to your coil, sometimes they used a resistance wire to drop the voltage to the coil, negative to the chassis and positive in the wire, if it is lower than 12volt you will need to take that into account and divide by that voltage and not the 12 volt I originally told you.

I believe the newer Pertrinix handles much more power that the 6-8 volts mine handles do I expect your under powering your spark if you have both coil and resistor.

I did not want to run the coil and resistor because it’s just less to go wrong, so I went to Napa and checked resistance on multiple coils and found the correct one (for my setup) with the 1.5 resistance. All coils and resistors are different and offer a wide range of values so you can often find the right coil by testing them. They don’t all have the resistance written on the box. Just make sure you get the one with the screw posts and not the clip style.

I went with the Napa brand because I wanted a coil that was easily accessible if it ever burnt out (which you will if you ever leave your key on without the motor running) mail ordering the pertronix suggested coil is not always going to be an option and I personally feel it’s the same coil everyone else sells but has their sticker on it so don’t feel pressure to buy the ones with the fancy name.

Ok good luck, and have a great trip.
 
Well I gave you a lot of information there but it is very simple. Touch the two terminals and divide that number by 12. Done.

That sounds like a great trip. I expect you will get a lot of waves and honks. People love seeing these old thunderbirds (which you don’t see often).

Hey I forgot to mention very important, check the positive ignition wire that feeds power to your coil, sometimes they used a resistance wire to drop the voltage to the coil, negative to the chassis and positive in the wire, if it is lower than 12volt you will need to take that into account and divide by that voltage and not the 12 volt I originally told you.

I believe the newer Pertrinix handles much more power that the 6-8 volts mine handles do I expect your under powering your spark if you have both coil and resistor.

I did not want to run the coil and resistor because it’s just less to go wrong, so I went to Napa and checked resistance on multiple coils and found the correct one (for my setup) with the 1.5 resistance. All coils and resistors are different and offer a wide range of values so you can often find the right coil by testing them. They don’t all have the resistance written on the box. Just make sure you get the one with the screw posts and not the clip style.

I went with the Napa brand because I wanted a coil that was easily accessible if it ever burnt out (which you will if you ever leave your key on without the motor running) mail ordering the pertronix suggested coil is not always going to be an option and I personally feel it’s the same coil everyone else sells but has their sticker on it so don’t feel pressure to buy the ones with the fancy name.

Ok good luck, and have a great trip.
I'm going in September for the rod run, there are as many as 20,000+ cars there so you can bet I won't be the only baby bird. It's a great time and we enjoy going down. Mike
 
Have you confirmed you have constant spark? Pull the Coil wire going to the center top of the distributer cap and put a screwdriver in the distribter end of the wire and lay it on a known ground such as the exhaust manifold and see if you are getting good solid spark, if so, do the same with a plug wire. (Sometimes this is easier to see with the lights off in your garage.)
Before you go crazy, pull the distributor cap off and turn the engine over and make sure the rotor is going round and round. I have had a few cars that had bad gear teeth on the bottom of the distributor and so the rotor would turn some and stop for a few teeth and then go again causing the engine to run, then stop.
 
A couple of things may cause this. I’d check the battery for a charge. I’d then check the generator and finally the regulator. If the generator and regulator aren’t doing their job, your car will run off the battery. It doesn’t take long for the battery to die if the generator and regulator are working properly. There are you tube videos on how to check the generator as well as the regulator. Or it could be something as water in the gas line... Or as Tanna suggested above.
 
It could also be the condenser in the distributor. Have had some really weird experiences with condensers and points.
 
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