MSD 6AL Ignition Troubleshooting: How I Found the Hidden Issue!

The 1982 El Camino is back and not without some issues that need to be addressed. I started with a crank no start situation where I thought the MSD 6AL was bad. Follow along as I dive into troubleshooting and diagnosing this MSD 6AL ignition system to determine if it’s good or bad. Along the way, I did uncover a hidden issue that was causing all of the problems, and I’ll show you so that you don’t make the same mistakes! I'll also cover some general basic electrical troubleshooting tips to help you with your own projects. Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more racing and repair adventures! 🏁🚗💨

In troubleshooting the MSD 6AL, or any electrical system for that matter, the best place to start is at the battery. If the battery isn’t good , everything else will have issues too. I had a TOPDON 4000 battery charger and maintainer with a power supply mode that has been very useful for what I’m doing.

Here’s a link to the charger I use on the El Camino. Use this link and code SNOW10 for a discount: https://topdonusa.com/collections/battery-chargers-maintainers/products/tornado4000?ref=SnowFamilyRacing

The next thing I grabbed is my Digital Mulitmeter, and started looking to make sure I have good power and grounds. After that I made sure that I have a good keyed power source, both at the connection I was taking off from and at the box. The following that, the next thing to do is jumper the Green and Purple wires for the magnetic pickup. You’ll want to run a spark plug wire to a spark plug and ground the plug for this test. By jumpering these wires with the key on will help you determine if the problem is in the magnetic pickup or coil. If no spark is present during this test, swap the coil to a known good coil and repeat, this will rule out the coil. If you get spark, you will know the box is good and that the problem lies after the box side of the connector to the magnetic pickup. The black connector is a common failure point with having the contacts get pushed out. Check those next. This is exactly where my problem was. One wire had just barely backed out and was not making contact. I pushed the contact back in and was able to start the car very easily.

Electrical troubleshooting is not that hard or complicated, it’s a matter of systematically starting at one end and going to the other until you find the problem. Sure, I could have started in the middle, but then I might be chasing my tail trying to determine if the problem is before or after where I started. Once you have some history with your car, you’ll be able to know where common failure points are and go straight for them.

Here’s a link to the multimeter probe set that I’m using: https://amzn.to/3MESB6J

All links are affiliate links and I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you.
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