Late 70%e2%80%99s Ford 302 Mercruiser Won%e2%80%99t Start

"Just purchased and installed

"Just purchased and installed a Prestolite electronic distributor and the engine turns over, but will not start. I don’t recall how I had the wiring set up before? (Sorry, not good, lesson learned!). I am sure I have this way off!!!

From the distributor:
Purple wire - going to the positive side of the coil.
Black wire - going to the negative side of the coil.

From the harness (going off of the diagram in the manual):
Yellow wire – going to the solenoid post that is marked with an S.
Tan wire - going to the positive side of the coil, from solenoid, post is marked with an I.
Brown wire - going to the negative side of the coil.
White wire - going to the positive side of the electric choke.
Black wire - going to the negative side of the electric choke.
Red with White stripe (pos.) and Black wire (neg.) - going to the alternator.
All the other wires I do not have hooked up to anything as they are for gauges that I have set up separately.
Does this seem right? I seem to remember a wire splitting off of the white wire and going to the positive site of the coil? But I’m only guessing!!!!

I have 2 coils that I have tried:
One is a “Flame thrower” from a previous “Pertronix” conversion distributor kit I had and the other is a stock one. The directions do say it “may require a new coil if your application currently uses a ballast resistor and to use a Standard UC16 T coil. How do I know this?

Thanks!!!"

It would seem that you have th

It would seem that you have the coil grounded out by having the black wire on the neg side of the coil.
If the black wire is going to ground on the choke it stands to reason the other black wire going to the coil is also a ground.
Check that the black wire on the coil is not grounding out.

"Thanks, I'll check it out

"Thanks, I'll check it out."

"Well, the first thing I check

"Well, the first thing I checked was the distributor. (Off 180 degrees!) Not the first time (or the last I'll do that!)

I did not change any of the wiring other than adding a resister wire. (split off of the hot wire on the electric choke and running to the positive side of the coil.

Got it to start, Runs very good. Timing is good, Idles well. But, now I have unburnt fuel coming out of the exhaust? I'll check the see if I have spark to all cylinders. Carb is in decent shape and has never shown these symptoms before? Hmmm?"

"Rebuilt the carb, spark to al

"Rebuilt the carb, spark to all cylinders, running great!"