She's had a bit of a sporadic problem with her heart beat since I broke down in the first hour of my trip to Montana over a week ago. At that point we thought it was the old coil, and then the old plug/coil wires (high voltage.) She drove great after that point to Montana, then on the fishing trip.
Jason and I left Missoula a week later on 7/17 in good spirits. But again, within an hour of leaving we died on I-90 in Drummond. At that point we unhooked the coil capacitor which was old and we suspected was shorting the circuit. And Nellie was off again, running strong.
After camping in Idaho that night, we headed out towards Jackson. The temperature was below 40, and she didn't want to run that strong. Within an hour (again), we passed Drummond, ID and she started sputtering and left us dead on the side of the road between wheat and potato fields. This time we made progress... we found a loose connection on the input side of the coil. The connector and wire had started to separate, but you couldn't see it easily. Cutting the connector off and putting the wire direction around the stud had us up and running. Success! This was probably the problem all along.
In Jackson, we thought we'd be proactive. We stopped at Ace and bought a set of connectors, a crimper, and some wire and a switch in case we had to completely bypass the ignition circuit. That afternoon, we left the Tetons National Park and within an hour (sense a theme yet?) she was sputtering a bit. This time we turned into a parking area before being stuck on the side of the road. I put the proper terminal on the ignition wire and.....whalla! Nothing. Now it wouldn't run at all. So we moved forward with bypassing everything. A switch was installed under the dash and wire run directly to the coil. And....whalla! Still nothing.
We had multiple visitors checking out the truck and talking to us while figuring out what to do next. Jason took the bullets for the most part and kept them a few feet away while I worked on it. Eventually I checked the coil to distributor wire. It looked really good, but on close inspection, it was also separating at the connection. Could it be? Sure was... Nellie started right up. We unhooked the bypass wiring and went back to being able to turn the car on and off with the key. Then we drove her out of Jackson Hole up over 9500 ft without missing a beat. In fact, we were passing other cars up the hill.
We are cautiously optimistic as we leave Casper, WY for the Badlands today. The first hour will be critical. I did check for a Drummond, WY, but looks like we're safe on that count.
Wish us luck!
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