My car wont start unless I disconnect a wire.

Tiny
ANONYMOUS
  • MEMBER
  • 1987 OLDSMOBILE CUTLASS
  • 85,000 MILES
My car wont start unless I disconnect a wire harness from the distibutor leading to the a/c, and after starting I must reconnect the harness in order to run my a/c. What are the wires for and how do I correct the problem
Wednesday, November 7th, 2012 AT 1:24 AM

1 Reply

Tiny
JDL
  • MECHANIC
  • 16,098 POSTS
If it is in timing mode, It will run, but, probably not very good, no advance. Unplugging connector may put it in timing mode, yes it will run. There are several cutlass, I looked at cutlass supreme v6.

Any applicable trouble codes? You should be able to check those yourself? At the distributor black wire with red tracer is ground. Purple wire with white tracer is rpm signal, goes to ecm. During cranking and timing set, the ignition module controls spark timing. With everything plugged in, above a certain rpm, the ecm puts 5 volts on the tan wire with black tracer. That tells the ignition module to use the signal on the white wire for timing. If the 5 volts is there and nothing on the white wire, it won't run. I hope I didn't confuse you, just trying to explain part of it.
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Wednesday, November 7th, 2012 AT 5:38 PM

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