Okay, my friends and I went off-roading Saturday and I had no problems while on the trail (a lot of fun though!). We then left and stopped in a tourist town roughly 30 minutes from the trail head, still in the hills, to get a bite to eat. Upon finishing our pizza, we got in our rigs to head for home. My friend drove off in his XJ, but my pickup wouldn't start. I figured my battery was dead because we've had problems with it holding a charge, so I keyed him up on the CB and he pulled up to give me a jump.

Didn't do a thing.

After some curses, headaches, and bruises, we realized that we were getting no arc. Neither at the distributor nor the coil. Since then we've replaced the coil and the "ignitor assembly" but still nothing.

While trying to make progress last night my father and I were hovering over the hood when I heard a sound (with the ignition still on). I thought it was a wire arcing, he said it was a relay going on and off. The sun had set though and we waited until today to work on it.

After some playing around, and looking at a wiring schematic out of a repair book, we discovered that by wiggling the thermo switch two we could not only induce the previous sound we heard, but also the "emmissions relay" would click near the passenger side fender well.

If this has anything to do with my loss of arc or not I do not know. I'm only twenty and bought this truck with the intent of using it to learn about automotive mechanics. I've got friends and family that know a thing or two though, so any advice could probably be understood by them.

Right now my baby is parked in the yard dead in it's tracks. I wish I knew what to do, but don't have a clue.

Much thanks in advance,
La Bomba

P.S. 1983 Pick-up, 4X4, and I live in California w/ all those pesky emissions laws.

sounds like the typical "stuck" starter. get out the hammer and bang on the starter while someone trys n starts the truck. If you hear a click but the starter wont turn over this is prolly ur problem. the brushes can form dead spots and if they stop in this one spot they wont have a connection. hammer moves em a slight amount to get a connection. Iv had this happen to me a few times. U can replace the brushes or just give the starter several hard hits with the hammer. not hard enough to break or bend it but not light.

if that doesnt work then run a wire from ur batt (pos) directly to ur starter with key in ON position the truck should start. this will tell u if its an electrical problem or a starter problem. if the truck starts its electical to ur starter otherwise its the starter.

I apologize. I forgot to add something. The starter seems to work because the motor turns over, just doesn't start.

Again, I apologize. Forgot to add this.

ok so its turning over... we need more info... what motor? carbed? i take it. Is ur fuel pump working? this might be more then electrical.
-i was being a dumbass and over reading parts sorry lol..

22re, the four banager, and yes it's carburated. I never had any fuel pump problems before, but we've been focusing on the electrical components so I haven't checked that out yet. Just got dark, so I will tomorrow.

Bah, I had a friend ask if the fuel pump was working as well, so I went ahead and checked. I turn the motor over, and I can smell fuel, so it's gotta be working.

A cheap trick for checking if you have spark is to pull out "A" spark plug reconnect the wire hold it near a grounded part on your truck about 1/8" away and have someone turn the engine over. Make certain that you are wearing electrical insulated gloves or you will get a shock that you really don't want. If it sparks then you have juice and that means it isn't electrical. Another cause could be the time chain. This could cause no spark. For the battery issue it could be just a dead battery have it checked (freebie) at Napa, Shucks, AutoZone or it could be a bad altenator, or an electrical short that is draining your battery.

Thank you all, but we finally discovered the problem. We replaced the pickup coil/signal generator (not the regular coil) and she started right up. But I still need some help. After running for a couple minute's it's idling at almost 3K rpm. We stopped her, let it sit for a while to cool down, and after starting again it continued to idle at about the same, w/o warming up. It seemed as if the RPM's even began to pickup some, so we killed the motor. The idle doesn't seem rough really, just really, really high. The idle was crap at first, but that seemed to go away on it's own. We tried disengaging the automatic choke, assuming that was the problem, like we've done before, but the rpm's never drop.

The only thing we can think of, is that in trying to find the problem, the wire for the "thermo switch #2" (according to Hayne's repair manual) came off the switch itself. I tried jerry rigging it in the "port" with a but clip but it still didn't seem to effect the high idle.

My Father and I had our heads in the engine compartment, so our noses were immune to gas fumes, but when it started my mother reported that it smelled really, really rich, but that was when it first started with the crap idle, which has gone away now.

It's just idling really..... really....... high.

Our best guess is that that thermo switch is what disengages the automatic choke via temperature, and my redneck wiring didn't work, and the ECU is not getting the message to kill the choke.

Again, thanks for all the help.