Used the long weekend to work on the 66. Pulled the points distributor and found some interesting things along the way.
For those unfamiliar with points distributors, they work just fine but require more frequent upkeep to stay in good operation. I want to have this truck in a place that keeps it as low maintenance as possible so I installed an MSD 8360 that was in the crew cab. I have an HEI I could of thrown in but I kinda like the idea of having something that still kinda looks original with the small cap and external coil. In hindsight I didn't think about the MSD stuff being red and not black but oh well.
The first surprise I found was in the coil wiring. Points won't last very long when full 12V is applied so typically a resistance wire was installed in these trucks to drop the voltage down around 9V, maybe less. GM added an extra wire from the starter solenoid that would apply full 12V when cranking only, maybe some of you have wondered what that extra connection was on some of the starters. The surprise was my coil didn't have have the second wire.
That got me suspicious because the wire also didn't look like a resistance wire should. Pulled out the multimeter and sure enough, the one ignition wire has 12V. Somewhere along the line this has been modified but yet it doesn't look to be home-brew, especially not compared to other wiring on this truck. The tape wrapped loom is all in tact.
Another find was the coil was wired backwards; the 12V feed was on the negative and point wire to distributor was on the positive along with the tach. Apparently they will run this way but the output voltage is reduced, about 15% reduction by one source I found.
I had a moment of panic when the MSD distributor wouldn't drop in. Fortunately all I had to do was pull the rotor.
I made up my own plug wires using Taylor StreetThunder wires. It was a bit of a pain in the ass because the boots were super tight. The last set I did was from Jegs and they didn't fight near as much. Figured out the best way to do them was to NOT follow the directions. Instead of sliding the boot on before crimping the terminal, it was easier to crimp the terminals on and then just slide the boots on over the terminals.
If you look on the picture above, to the right of the coil you can see a relay. The 12V feed to the coil I mentioned above is only 18ga wire. I decided it would be safer to use a relay rather than the tiny gauge wire. I pulled a 10ga wire straight from the battery and the original ignition wire triggers the relay.
And this is that moment when you look under the dash for an innocent reason and discover this!
I spotted at least 3 or 4 (depending on how you count one of them) scary splices. Hint, I don't like Scotchloks.
I figure if I ever sell it the next buyer may pay more if I have it.
