I have been driving my 87 cargo conversion lately because my LE is in the shop. Wouldn't you know it, now I am having a problem with it! I drove it to work the other day and when I went to leave, it started up just fine. As I was backing out, I killed it and now it will not start. It cranks and occasionally sounds like it is going to turn over. I flooded it for sure (I could smell gas outside and behind the exhaust) so I am sure I am getting fuel.

I decided to undertake this repair myself so I checked for spark and had none. I replaced the distributor cap and rotor even though both looked just fine. Still cranks but won't turn over. I decided I must have done something wrong so I dug back in to make sure the rotor was pushed down all the way, made sure the wires to the cap were connected and in the right spots. They were. Put it all back together and tried to start it. BOOM, starts right up. Shut it off. Tried again, fired right up. So I started to put the passenger side 'hood' back on. Then it started raining so I decided to pull it into the garage and finish up. Wouldn't start. Same thing, cranks but won't fire up. Put a tester between a plug and the distributor and had intermittent spark but not consistent enought to start up.

Determind to fix this myself, I dove back into the forum. Decided it was the ignition coil. Had a hell of a time getting the old OEM one off; the two screws closest to the motor were trouble. But finally I got it off and installed a NAPA replacement that looked exactly like the OEM one. Tried to start it. Same thing.

I have tested all of my fusible links, fuses, and plan on checking the ground wire tomorrow. I still need to test the ignitor as I have read that could be the problem as well. My LE is already racking up a shop bill and I am still hopeful I can fix this myself. At this point I feel like I either have a short somewhere, a bad distributor, or a bad ignitor. Any thoughts?