Engine just shut off

[junkpile]

I have a 69 charger 440 +0.30, with an electronic ignition. Driving thru a residential area the car just shut off after driving 10 miles in moderate traffic. It restarted right away and ran smooth. I have no clue as to what could cause the shut down, and its never done it before. I know if the amphmeter goes out you have to run a jumper wire to bypass the gauge to get it to run, but my car restarted and ran fine.

Anyone have a suggestion for possible thing to look at? I do not want to have this problem come up again if i can solve it now, especially if I have my two kids with me, they love riding in the car but getting stuck somewhere with them would not be good so i want to get after this now before it happens again.

thanks in advance.

 

[D575]

Check Bulkhead connector. Top row .

 

[Pistol Pete]

Years back I had a Challenger that would do that. It had an MSD box with a Mallory Unilite distributor. Turns out the module in the dizzy was going bad.

 

[eric383]

X2 on the bulkhead connector. Pull it off and clean all the connections. Check the connections on the coil. Any old factory connectors are suspect. I helped out a buddy with a Cuda with the Mopar electronic ignition with a similar problem. We found a connector between the dist. and the brain box with a dirty connection. There is nothing worse than driving a car that does this. I've been there. Good luck.

 

[RustyRatRod]

As long as it's running, it's impossible to diagnose. Your best hope is that it'll die and stay dead. Then you can figure it out.

 

[WP29440SE]

grounds grounds grounds grounds, check and clean every single ground including the ECU box, Voltage regulator etc etc
you would be shocked at how many issues bad grounds can cause. that's the first place I would start

 

[Fisher500]

I had a similar problem on my 70 Charger. It would just shut down, but would usually start again. After some digging around, I found that the orange electronic ignition box wasn't grounded very well. After I fixed the ground, it didn't seem to do it anymore. Also, sometimes replacing your ballast resistor will do the trick.

 

[Moparsmitty]

Stock or aftermarket ignition?

 

[junkpile]

The ignition is mopar performance distributor and orange box. I will look at all the things suggested and double check the resistor and the grounds at the regulator and orange box (ground could have gotten a little messed up of the past couple of years). I hav had no reason to check the grounds becuase it has been running so great even after a 2500 mile road trip. I will let you know what i find.

Thanks again, anyone who still wants to post advise, I am all for it.

 

[WP29440SE]

The ignition is mopar performance distributor and orange box. I will look at all the things suggested and double check the resistor and the grounds at the regulator and orange box (ground could have gotten a little messed up of the past couple of years). I hav had no reason to check the grounds becuase it has been running so great even after a 2500 mile road trip. I will let you know what i find.

Thanks again, anyone who still wants to post advise, I am all for it.

mine has ran for thousands of miles until one day it quit . I re-grounded the box and every other ground and it has been working flawlessly. do you honestly believe parts don't lost their grounds? you have every reason to check them. but if you don't want to , obviously its your choice

 

[67 coronet]

before you clean and tighten the ign box make sure it has not vibrated loose.if it is loose that is your prob.(causes intermittent ground)fairly common prob for after market systems.clean the contact points and make it tight again.only common other causes would be component failure when heating up of the ign module or pickup.that normally only happens with older components but you can never be sure.

 

[earlyrides]

I had this happen. It turned out it was the main 12 volt feed through the bulkhead connector.
The give away is when it happens next time, check to see if you have headlights.
No headlights, probably the bulkhead connector.
Easy enough to disconnect and check. If they look green they need to be cleaned.

 

[Moparsmitty]

Be careful disconnecting the bulkhead connector. That plastic is 40+ years old now and can be very brittle. Take your time and don't force it.
I had a mopar orange box go bad on me a long time ago. It would get hot and quit just like I had shut of the key. Then it would start right back up and run fine until next time it decided to quit, sometimes days later. Must have had an intermittent open connection inside. After checking everything else I finally swapped out the box and no more trouble. I'm not saying that's your problem, but it's a possibility. I usually have an extra one around anyway. They aren't real expensive.

 

[Meep-Meep]

This is definitely electrical. Check all the connections as suggested and I'll add checking the fast-ons at the ballast resistor connections. You have a connector crimp that has one strand of wire barely making contact. You just need to find it. Either that or the box or pickup are bad.

 

[junkpile]

OK everyone, I went thru the cars wiring (engine bay harness is about 8 years old), checked all the grounds (orange box seemed fine but I made sure the box was gounding properly), wiring to ballast resistor was tight, resistor looked good voltage regulator looked good, re- grounded anyway, bulkhead connector was fine contacts appeared all cleen, coil was fine no leaks all contacts good. Car is running fine, for now, no shut downs. I am going to get another orange box an swap it out, the one on the car has been there since 1996 when I first put the 440 in, so i believe its time to swap that out. I will let you know if i have any further issues. thanks for all the advise and I believe checking the grounds was a good idea as there was some dirt and corosion at some of the mounting holes. Keep em running guys.