Hi all.
Have an early 80’s model car. Its been sitting up quite a while. In the process of getting it up and running again. Anyhow, when I put juice to the electrical system the distributor makes a very loud buzzing,sparking sound. I’ve “worked” all the electrical connections since all the contacts are probably on the corroded side. It also won’t quite start but it does fire once in a bit. Any ideas as to the cause of the buzzing? Thanks!
Please give year, make, model, and specific engine size. With that info I can efficiently identify what components your car has, instead of trying to remember every possibility from the era.
Also please describe exactly what “putting juice to the electrical system” means. I’m sorry, but that’s not helpful. Are you saying it makes the noise when the (otherwise dead?) battery is energized? Is the ignition switch on or off? Does it makes the noise while cranking? What I’m asking for is a SIMPLE, PRECISE description of the conditions under which the symptom appears. The description of the symptoms (buzzing noise, no start but appears to fire occasionally) is satisfactory.
Again I’m sorry, but what does “worked” the connections mean? Cleaned them? Something more? Something else?
Hey Gary
Thanks. Its a 1982 AMC Spirit 6 cylinder (252?), manual transmission, with AC. Worked the connections means I unplugged and replugged most of the electrical connections under the hood that I could find, including the spark plug wires. IME that tends to make a bad connection not so bad anymore but its not as good as actually getting in there and cleaning them. By putting juice to the system I meant hooking up the battery.
When the battery is connected the distributor makes a constant sparking/buzzing sound with the car just sitting there with the ignition on (and its fairly loud too). The cranking is pretty noisy so I can’t tell if its doing while I am cranking it. I did take the distributor cap off and it looks pretty good in there. Nothing looks corroded or burnt or broken or wore out . The distributor is pretty old but it probably only has 10k on it. The wires to the coil look okay as well.
When turning over, the car seems to fire once in great while. And its backfiring sometimes too so I get the impression it ain’t firing when it supposed to.
I think the only thing that should be energized in the distributor when the engine isn’t running is the pickup coil. A bad one could be consistent with it randomly firing when trying to start it. You’ll probably have to pop the cap and rotor off to get to it, and a service manual should tell you how to test it with a VOM meter.
Thanks for the clarification. I’m sorry to say it seems your car is being nonsensical and I don’t know what’s going on. 
(I’m assuming the car does NOT have a GM HEI system, with the ignition coil contained in the distributor cap. My repair info seems to indicate that it doesn’t, but vaguely suggests that it might.)
The only electrical/electronic component I see inside the distributor is the pickup coil. Normally, it generates a signal, only when the distributor shaft is rotating, that gets amplified by the ignition module (separate remote piece) and then sent to the ignition coil to produce spark. I’ve never seen nor heard of a pickup coil buzzing, particularly when nothing’s moving, but I won’t say it’s impossible. I would see if there is actual spark coming out of the coil wire going to the distributor, and if so if that is what’s buzzing (for curiosity’s sake, my next step would be the same either way).
I would disconnect the pickup coil plug (looks to be a 3-wire connector at/near the distributor) and see if the buzzing stops. If it does, I’d replace the pickup coil, verify no buzzing with the new part in place, and expect that to fix it. If that doesn’t take care of it, the next suspect on my list is the ignition module. My repair info lacks a complete wiring diagram for this system and has a (ridiculous) test procedure for the ignition module that does not list a faulty module as a possible cause of failure. In other words, the book ain’t helping, so this is more of a common sense/seat of the pants approach.
Hi guys thanks for the input. Finally got the beast to roar to life!
When I went back out to look at it again I started wondering if it was 12 volts buzzing around in there or high voltage from the coil (though like you I wondered how a coil could be discharging without the distributor rotating but then again you never know because cars be haunted with gremlins sometimes).
So, I totally disconnected the coil and applied power and there was still the buzzing. Which I was sorta glad because that meant that I could mess around with stuff with the power on and not get the crap shocked out me. So I start messing with some of the wiring and decided to unplug and clean the connector that supplies power to the distributor. And the buzzing was still there! WTF?
:smack: It WASN’T the distributor. I was one of those vacuum line solenoid/valve thingys close by. It sure sounds like it was comming from the distributor. Maybe its the way sound was bouncing around down in there (it couldnt be that I’m just stupid 
)
So I hook things back up, pull out one the spark plug wires, throw a spark plug on it and ground it. Do some cranking and NO spark 
Dick around with some stuff, even test/swap out the coil (both were at least okay if not good). Decided to bite the bullet and do a good cleaning on the all the electrical connections.
That did the trick. It fired up. The carbs a little wonky because it won’t quit idle without quiting but that probably just because the carb needs cleaning/adjustment. But with a little babying I ran it for a few minutes and it sounded pretty decent. At least no disturbing mechanical sounds coming from the engine. Now to just put it back together (lots of stuff under the hood isn’t currently under there or attached) so I can run it for more than a few moments.
Thanks again guys.
The buzzing solenoid/valve thingee could be the anti-diesel solenoid, which could definitely cause it not to idle if it’s acting up.
Thanks for that pointer Greasy jack. There are so many vacuum hoses, soleniods, and other vacuumy things under the hood it ridiculous. Surely some of them no longer work. Guess I need to see I can replace them one by one with new ones.
I did the cooling system back together enough to get it running. I spent a couple hours looking for a missing critical bracket. It then took another hour or so of pondering to figure out how that bracket, another bracket, and an air pump all fitted together to mount on the engine.
Got the beast to idle (though a bit high) for about 45 minutes. Temp and oil pressure was good. Will give it another long run to warm up the oil good again then drain and replace it and filter. Unfortunately, I had too much gas build up before it started and I blued urp my murfler real good. Fortunately it was an el cheapo muffler and if I get this thing to running where I might want to drive it I was planning on getting a better muffler anyway. However, the now split wide open muffler was exhausting right near the gas tank. So I had to set the lawn sprinkler under there as anti fire/explosion prevention measure.
thanks again guys.
Got her up and running (but still not ALL back together) last evening (with my fancy fire suppression system on). Ran at high idle about 2 hours and no oil or coolant leaking/spewing out of anywhere. Went to change the oil and long story short managed to spill 5 quarts of brand new oil. There went 20 dollars for nothing and a possible oil stain on the driveway (at least its way in the backyard part of it and it was clean oil).
I’d bet money there is a good bit of water in that gas tank. Whats the best stuff to use to get rid of that? Better yet, whats the active ingredient in that stuff? Ethanol? Because if thats the case I can just run down the hardware store and get a LARGE volume of it cheap and dump it in the tank. I need to burn off all that bad old gas anyway AND make sure the engine is decent for driving before I even think of taking it on the road so I don’t mind lots of idling time. I am not worried about the catalytic converter as it died years ago. And a new oxygen sensor, which it needs anyway, is pretty cheap. So, what can I dump in there to gather up most of the water?
I am not an expert, but I think you want to drain the tank and start fresh. Water will not be good to get to the cylindars. I think the old gas will also create a varnish in the cylindars as well. I don’t know if the gas treatments rehabilitate old gas or if it is designed to have fresh gas to last longer.
As for disposing of the old gas, you’ll probably have to take it to a hazardous waste depot.
Gary you seem like you might be able to help me
Toyota hiace 1996 rzh113
Points distributor, the coil and module are both inside the distributor
I’m having a buzzing noise coming from my ignition module,( I just replaced it with a new one) still having the buzzing.
I’ve tested the coil and it’s all good
I’ve tested the volts to the coil and it’s good.
I’ve then tested the ignition module, from what I’ve read while cranking the car the ignition module negative terminal should bounce back and forth from 12v to 0v.
Mine remains the same voltage, is this a faulty module? (Even know I just bought it new)
I have a video of this, but it won’t allow me to upload it as I’m a new user
Any information would be great
I would suggest joining the amc forum . com (all together) as they specialize in AMC products. They have been a great help with my 1965 AMC/Rambler Marlin.
Use flexible tubing like a stethoscope to verify/pinpoint the source of the noise.
