engine shudders and cuts out randomly.

[the excuse]

ok so i have a 83 chevy blazer it has a 350 in it with a carb, and distributer. i put in a autometer tachometer gauge that reads by having a positive wire that goes to the positive post on teh coil. somthimes the engine will start to sputter badly, when this happens the gauge needle reads all over the place. what could the problem be? it happens randomly and will sometimes be bad enough to make the engine stop. im thinking it has to do with the rotor and cap or coil or spark plugs or points. i pulled two of the plugs out, one from each side and both looked normal, a little tan on the tips. im not thinking it is the engine not getting enough gas because the tach needle dosnt read smooth at it dies, instaed it is all over the place as if it is missing sparks. since the tach is connected to the positive wire on the coil not the spark plug wire on the coil am i right to think it is somthing before the coil that is wrong like the points? i dont really understand how the points work either. i also checked the cap and there was a lot of biuldup on the contacts so i dremeled them cleen along with the cap. could the dremeling have made the gap between the contacts too big?

 

[84_Chevy_K10]

Last I checked the tach goes to the negative side of the coil. This may be your first problem.

 

[the excuse]

ok i just checked you are right it is connected to the negative. anyway, how do i fix my truck

 

[pauly383]

First off you mention points, is it an OLDER distributor. I would remove it and install an HEI distributor, no points to wear out, and most importantly no DWELL to set. Sounds like someone removed the ESC distributor which would of been stock on that 83'. I removed mine and run one for a 70 something nova. Running an HEI distributor gives you an actual plug to hook the tach up to also.

If you keep the distributor you have, and it does have points, remove the set you dremeled, get a new set , and set the dwell and time it. I recommend new cap and rotor. /forums/images/graemlins/k5.gif

 

[the excuse]

it is not a stock distributor. it has a red cap but there is no name on the cap. i went to look at a new cap and rotor today and the stock one looked way bigger, the coil is also off to the side seperate fro the distributor.

 

[the excuse]

how do i set the dwell? would the timing need to be reset?

 

[pauly383]

Someone removed your stock one for sure then. Points were good in their time if they were well maintained. Definitely if you are keeping it replace those points anyway so they are thick again, set dwell, timing and carb. Or just replace with an HEI , then just set timing and carb. /forums/images/graemlins/k5.gif

 

[the excuse]

ok i put new points and distributer cap on. i used a feeler gauge to ajust the points, do i need to have it checked with a dwell gauge? it idles perfect now, before i was getting some shaking ing the tack from misfires. does the timing need checking now too?