Hei issue

[6768chevylover]

Installed an AAW wire kit on my blazer about a year ago. Have an HEI dist. on it and it was fine till last weekend. I figured this would be a great time to upgrade to a DUI HEI dist. I had no spark when I pulled it. Installed new one and same thing no spark. Now, I was curious. I checked the pink wire that goes to the batt on dist. and when I put the voltage meter on it and it was almost 12v but then I had someone crank it for me and the voltage dropped to about low 8v. Is this suppose to happen?

[scottmitchellrose]

no- sounds like it could be a grounding issue. try connecting a wire (cable) from the neg batt. terminal to the vaccum advance and see what happens.

[VetteVet]

Originally Posted by 6768chevylover

Installed an AAW wire kit on my blazer about a year ago. Have an HEI dist. on it and it was fine till last weekend. I figured this would be a great time to upgrade to a DUI HEI dist. I had no spark when I pulled it. Installed new one and same thing no spark. Now, I was curious. I checked the pink wire that goes to the batt on dist. and when I put the voltage meter on it and it was almost 12v but then I had someone crank it for me and the voltage dropped to about low 8v. Is this suppose to happen?

You should not get less than 10 volts on the BATT wire during cranking.
Do a voltage drop test on the battery cable to starter solenoid during cranking and you should not see less than 10 volts there as well.

You can run a temporary wire from the battery positive to the distributor and try to crank the engine. This will tell you if the problem is in the distributor or in the wiring. I f you get a large voltage drop on the battery cable you will need to check all the connections on the battery and ground cables and possibly the cables themselves, they do go bad sometimes.

To do the voltage drop test you need a multimeter with about a 20 volts plus range on DC volts. Place the positive lead on the battery terminal post on the positive and the negative meter lead on the starter solenoid connection and have someone crank the engine while you read the meter.
If you get a large drop then your cable is bad the connections are bad or the starter itself is bad.

[67 Burb]

Before doing the voltage drop test that Vettevet described, do a visual check of your battery cables. If you are using the type of cable ends in the photo, make sure there is no corrosion inside the clamping piece and that the clamping piece is tight, or better yet, throw those cables away and install proper cables.