Breakdown Information
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1988 Pace Arrow, P30, 454 w/59k miles
Now comes the fun... sit down and enjoy the story.
Second trip out, going to Lake Havasu of all places.
About 25 miles from home driving along nice n smooth, the coach started smoking alot from behind, other cars were honking at us, so I pulled over and stopped. Looked underneath, only to find my transmission spilling out fluid everywhere. I had fluid all over my boat and everything. First I thought the the pump went out, but after having my whole rig towed to a trans shop in Lancaster CA, it turned out to be the cooler lines came loose for some reason and were leaking bigtime...I had to install a brass fitting and a short section of hi-pressure hose to fix the problem. Strange thing is both lines started leaking at the same time, for no reason. 4 quarts of fluid and 3 hours later, I am back on the road.
Next - I am not done yet. Same trip.
We get about 2 hours from Havasu, climbing up a slight grade towing my 22ft. boat. The engine suddenly loses all power, popping, banging, finally coming to a stop along the side of I-40. Outside temp. is about 101 at this time in the afternoon. This time I was really baffled. I thought the fuel pump went, or timing chain, or...After trouble shooting one thing at a time and repeatedly failing to get the engine started again, it turned out that the coil in the HEI ignition got smoked. Not sure why this happened. Well, it turns out I had every replacement part with me except that coil. Good thing we had cell phones...I called my good friend who lives in Havasu to get me a coil, and he drove 2 hours to bring me a coil. Oh yeah, we sat on the side of the road for about 4 1/2 hours by now, generator on, AC on, kid playing PS-2. Finally my friend shows up around 9:30pm with new coil and 12 pack of beer, I install the new coil, engine starts right up, I slam a beer and I am again back on the road. We finally ended up getting to our camp spot at 11:45pm that nite. I originally left for the trip at 6am in the morning (which should have been a 5 hours max. drive).
Now... 2 trips later
The coil burns out again. This time, on the famous Grapevine hill here in SoCal, again towing my boat. This time I buy another coil and it has this extra little metal "ground" pc. that goes inside the distributor cap and functions as the ground for the ignition... I didn't have this little thing in there before, not sure why it was not there. Some experienced GM guys told me that that ground terminal is needed as a ground for the whole ignition system, or the coil could (or will) short out. Make sure you have this metal ground pc. in your HEI ignition. It goes in the center of the tach and 12v terminals and the coil itself sits on top of and grounds against it via 4 screws. On your ignition harness connector that plugs into the cap, there's 3 wires. One for tach, one for 12v and the center black is for ground.
I've been on 9 more trips since all this, and have not had another problem...
Now comes the fun... sit down and enjoy the story.
Second trip out, going to Lake Havasu of all places.
About 25 miles from home driving along nice n smooth, the coach started smoking alot from behind, other cars were honking at us, so I pulled over and stopped. Looked underneath, only to find my transmission spilling out fluid everywhere. I had fluid all over my boat and everything. First I thought the the pump went out, but after having my whole rig towed to a trans shop in Lancaster CA, it turned out to be the cooler lines came loose for some reason and were leaking bigtime...I had to install a brass fitting and a short section of hi-pressure hose to fix the problem. Strange thing is both lines started leaking at the same time, for no reason. 4 quarts of fluid and 3 hours later, I am back on the road.
Next - I am not done yet. Same trip.
We get about 2 hours from Havasu, climbing up a slight grade towing my 22ft. boat. The engine suddenly loses all power, popping, banging, finally coming to a stop along the side of I-40. Outside temp. is about 101 at this time in the afternoon. This time I was really baffled. I thought the fuel pump went, or timing chain, or...After trouble shooting one thing at a time and repeatedly failing to get the engine started again, it turned out that the coil in the HEI ignition got smoked. Not sure why this happened. Well, it turns out I had every replacement part with me except that coil. Good thing we had cell phones...I called my good friend who lives in Havasu to get me a coil, and he drove 2 hours to bring me a coil. Oh yeah, we sat on the side of the road for about 4 1/2 hours by now, generator on, AC on, kid playing PS-2. Finally my friend shows up around 9:30pm with new coil and 12 pack of beer, I install the new coil, engine starts right up, I slam a beer and I am again back on the road. We finally ended up getting to our camp spot at 11:45pm that nite. I originally left for the trip at 6am in the morning (which should have been a 5 hours max. drive).
Now... 2 trips later
The coil burns out again. This time, on the famous Grapevine hill here in SoCal, again towing my boat. This time I buy another coil and it has this extra little metal "ground" pc. that goes inside the distributor cap and functions as the ground for the ignition... I didn't have this little thing in there before, not sure why it was not there. Some experienced GM guys told me that that ground terminal is needed as a ground for the whole ignition system, or the coil could (or will) short out. Make sure you have this metal ground pc. in your HEI ignition. It goes in the center of the tach and 12v terminals and the coil itself sits on top of and grounds against it via 4 screws. On your ignition harness connector that plugs into the cap, there's 3 wires. One for tach, one for 12v and the center black is for ground.
I've been on 9 more trips since all this, and have not had another problem...
