crane disaster

[PaVarrieur]

Arthur and all
Sorry, I didn't mean to be curt. I apologize for not making it clear that I was sure of the engine being at true TDC. I value everyones input regarding this problem. The frustration over this installation has gotten the best of me. I have never been stumped like this, and I have been working on my cars for 30 years.

[patmccusker]

When I put my crane in I was scared by smoke comming from balast resistor and I wouldnt let it run but finally I just let it go and it burned off whatever film it had on it and then worked great, but any way I noticed that the kit came with a variety of the slotted shutter wheels. It had some for four , six or ( I believe ) eight cylinder engines and I had a larger and smaller slotted shutter wheel for my six. The larger wheel didn't fit in good so I went with the smaller one. I had to file down the botton surface of my rotor to make up for the thickness of the wheel being in there. The instructions were to set the pick up to fire right at the leading edge of the slot. You can test it by seeing where the little light on the side of the control box lights up. thats when it is firing. Im not a good mechanic and I had plenty fo questions when I set mine up but I tell you it is the best thing I've done yet to help performance ( besides fixing a vaccuum leak ).So dont give up on it. Its a dumb question but are you sure you have the same number of slots in your shutter as you have cylinders? If you do and every thing else is as you describe, I'd suspect you have a bad control module. Pat

[psfred]

Paul:

If the timing light works, you have a spark, although it could be a bad one.

If you are using the factory coil, go back to the factory setting for gap, since the gap will be determined by the coil's ability to put a spark across it at full throttle (or when starting) when you have high density charge in the cylinder.

The Crane is kinda goofy about synch for some reason, although I believe you have it correct.

Almost has to be some sort of a timing issue if you are getting spark, though, but I cannot fathom how you can have the ignition timing set more or less correctly AND fail to run....

Peter

[ctaylor738]

I believe you when you say you are getting good spark at the right time when you are cranking. Is it possible that you did not wire the "run" side correctly? There is a 12V feed to the coil when cranking, and run goes through the resistors. So maybe your "run" spark is flakey or non-existent.

Improbable, but all I could think of.

[DANTRCAV]

It has been a number of years since I installed the Crane on a 250C and since I sold the car over a year ago I cannot check my installation. However, that being said, I do remember a similar problem when I first installed the system. I also had a Crane ignition coil but I did not install that coil when I first did the conversion. I wanted to see how/if the car would run first. It did not.

Now, as I remember (and I don't have the instructions or notes any more) the Crane requires a minimum voltage to PROPERLY fire the optical trigger. I think (remember, "think") it was around 9 volts or so. I was not getting that with the stock coil and resistor setup. I installed the Crane coil with the resistor that came with it and the engine fired the first time. I wish I still had my car so I could verify the hookup. I do remember that I had two wires (green and brown?) from the distributor to the old TCM box and the TCM box ground and that I also removed the ground wire (and external condensor).

Since I ran my 250C with 10 degrees advance on static timing, that is where I phased the trigger to fire - rather than TDC.

I also played with plug gap and I think I ended up around .040 or so running NGK BP5ES plugs.

Wish I had/remembered more info my install.

Good Luck. Once you get it sorted out you will be very happy with the conversion.

Dan

[PaVarrieur]

The Transistor Control Module has two connectors: A single green wire that leads to the points in the distributor, and a multi pin with 4 leads: Brown to ground, black to + coil, Red/Black to ballast resistor, and green to RPM relay.
This is how the stock system is wired. Which brings up a point: The crane unit is supposed to eliminate the TCM, using the optical trigger to tell the crane unit when to fire the coil, which sends the current to the rotor which when in sync with the proper terminal fires the appropriate plug.
Am I missing something? Is there a way to use both units together?

Still baffled

[DANTRCAV]

Ther is no way I know of to use both units together. In effect, you are replacing the stock TCM with the Crane control box. I not only disconnected all of the old wires to and from the TCM, I removed the TCM. I had no wiring from the stock system from the ballist resistors forward.

I also know that if you do not have at least the minimum volts to the Crane (~9 volts).

Dan

[PaVarrieur]

Yes, same here. grasping at staws to make the system work. there is plenty of voltage to the Crane (12.4v). I have checked everything numerous times. I have come to the conclusion that I will send the unit back in exchange for another.

At this point the car with all of the "new" old style ignition parts is running great.

[Arthur Dalton]

There are two points to consider

One :
According to my schematics, there are two stock systems used for Transistor ignition
One uses a coil neg ground and one does not
So , make sure you have only the Crane wires on the coil, no others
[ including the rpm wire for testing purposes]
Two:
According to my schematics, the dropping ballast for the stock coil is the .6 resistor . The other is in the switchgear circuit and is for points , not coil... meaning that your coil wants the .6 resistor as a ballast.
If you have measured your coil as 1 ohm , it is not an internal ballast coil
[ they run 3-4 ohm] I assume you have actually measure this resistance from +to - on the coil with no wires hooked?
In the event you have internal R coil , I suspect you have too much R the way you have it wired now..

So I would try : All wiring from old unit disconnected and wired as follows w/crane
Ballast of .6 used between coil + and ignition.
Make sure there is no gnd wire on coil neg side, and wire Crane to coil as specified, w/o tach/rpm wire for testing only..