Team Chevelle banner

68 396 suddenly no start

9K views 16 replies 7 participants last post by  Dave Hintz 
#1 ·
Evening all,

First off, if after reading this the Admins determine this is in the wrong section, please move it.

I have been chasing electrical gremlins with my just purchased 68 Chevelle SS with the 396BB. I finally got the fuel guage to work, and got the bulbs replaced for some light in the dash for night time driving.

I went to start the car tonight, and nothing. The gen and temp light lit up, dome light all worked. No clicking, no slow turn over, nada, zip, zilch, nothing. What the hell wiring did I screw up trying to fix the other stuff. It fired up just fine Sunday when we took it for a drive. It has a 4 speed manual transmission. It reminds me of trying to start an automatic transmission car while it is still in drive. Looking under the dash, I can't find a switch attached to the clutch pedal that would act like a neutral safety switch.

Any ideas, or where I should begin to look.

Dave
 
#13 ·
Had that wire melt to my manifold the first week I had my car. Not much room down there...and think I was the first person to really drive the car for a while. Hope it is something that simple.
 
#6 ·
Here is the solenoid S terminal. (Chevelle won't have a cable like that on the starter field terminal)



The neutral safety switch is down on top of the steering column. It's normally a switch with 4 wires, Purple/white & purple for the start circuit and pink & green for the back up lights.

Should have 12 volts in and 12 volts out on purple during start
 
#8 ·
yeah you need to check if the purple wire attached
to the starter s-terminal has voltage when turned to start position
if not got back to the firewall connector, lots of issues can be found there...
bad connections or melted items

IIRC-the floor shift manual/stick cars in 68 did not have a NSS
but the column shifted auto and console cars did have a NSS
my 68 stick car did not come with a NSS

but the 69 stick-cars had to have depress the clutch to start >:)
 
#10 ·
It came from the factory with the M-21 4spd, so I didn't think it had a NSS.

Doing some reading, the car has also been upgraded to HEI, so I wonder if that also comes into play.

With the headers on the car, things are awfully tight down there. I wonder if it would be better to take the starter down to check it out or not.

Thanks for the picture. I'll be crawling under the car tomorrow to begin the checkout procedure.
 
#15 ·
Yep. Now that I'm not feeling so dejected after a decent nights sleep (I was going to head to a local car club's meeting last night to join up when this happened) it is to coincidental with me being under the dash, especially when it fired up fine on Sunday. I am also thinking that the car was raced in a previous life as there is a lot of jerry-rigged wiring under the dash that my service manual may not do me much good anymore. It's a radio delete car, but the fan should work in the start position to see if 12 volts is getting out from the ignition switch. From there is will be time to begin tracing wires.

Good grief...I despise electrical gremlins. I'd much rather throw parts at something than chase wiring issues.
 
#17 ·
Yeah...it runs. Crawled under the dash, bending myself into a shape that a gymnast would be impressed with and started looking at the wires. Found the broken splice that went to the ignition switch. Got it spliced back together, then wrapped it with electrical tape to keep it from coming apart. Then had to figure out how to unbend myself to get back out of the car. Thanks for all your help. Onto the next project...the loose passenger arm rest. I'm done with electrical for awhile. :)
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top