holly distributor and gold box wiring help!

willbrowne

willbrowne

New member
I have two wires coming out of my distributor and I know they go to the coil but not sure how to identify which is which. Both black wires come out of the same place. Also,where is a good place to tie the electric choke into the harness? And...my gold box. No wires for gold box...
 
Why no wires for the gb? Are you trying to do some kind of retrofit? Do you have a service manual for your Scout?
 
I have the goldbox but no spark. I rewired the Scout and im not sure if I wired the gb right. It turns over all day but no spark. I dont know if the gb is bad or not. Ive heard leaving the key in the on position for too long with the engine off will fry the goldbox and that did happen one day I got sidetracked and the key was on untill the battery died.
 
Well, there's a good chance you did fry either the remote amplifier module (gold box) or the pickup inside the distributor during the key on/engine off event. There is a testing procedure for this system outlined in the factory service manual, but it is fairly involved and spans several pages. Could you please elaborate on the specific steps you took to determine that you have no spark? Did this engine run immediately prior to the rewire? When did the key on event happen in relation to the testing for spark?
 
Thanks for the reply, the engine came out of a 77 and did run before the swap, but I was swapping everything from the 77 to a 72 and both of the trucks had serious p.o. Problems with the wiring. I bought a kwickwire kit and had the engine wanting to start but you had to keep the key in the start posistion and it would sound like it was trying to run but if you let off the key it would die. After I got frustrated enough to leave the shop I came back the next day and the key was still in the on position and the battery was dead. I bought a new coil from autozone yesterday but havent put it in yet, I thought that was the problem but by what ive been reading and what you said, its looking like the goldbox. Also, im not even 100% sure ive got the gb wired correctly. Ive got the dizzy plugged into the gb and a hot(on an on/off switch) goinng to the other side of the gb and a wire coming from the +side of coil to another plug on the gb. I did all that by looking at something(I forgot what) where someone used the gb with a universal wire kit. I can put some pics of the wiring up later tonight
 
The gb module has 5 color-coded wires with proprietary male/female bullet connectors that can only be connected in one way. The colors are as follows:

16 black - chassis ground
16 yellow - 16d distributor male
16 blue - 16e distributor female
16 brown - 16c coil negative
16 red - 16b coil positive

In addition to these, you must have a wire (originally circuit 16) connected to the coil positive terminal which originates from an ignition switched on source (I terminal) providing 12 volts only when the key is on. Please verify that all the above is true in your case.
 
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Ah! Thank you! Thats what I needed to see. I have the dizzy plugged in correctly. I know that for a fact. Ill have to check the others... But I need a wire from the "I" terminal on the ign switch going to the +side of coil? Where is the goldbox getting power from to send spark to distributor? Also, isnt there a white wire in the plug inbetween the blue/yellow side and the brown/red side? What goes there?
 
Wait I think I figured it out. Wire from ign switch sends power to coil, coil sends power to goldbox, gb sends power to distributor. Is that right?
 
You got it. You must have the revised version of gb with an additional wire. I'll post a cheat sheet for it similar to what I did with the 5 wire version. Same principle, slightly different circuitry. Stand by.
 
Later gb with 6 wire harness:

16 black - chassis ground
16 blue - 16b distributor female
16 yellow - 16c distributor male
16 white - 95a decel throttle modulator female (exhaust emissions)
16 red - 16d coil positive
16 brown - 16e coil negative

Probably don't need to worry about the white wire in your case as it pertains to a non-essential emissions component that you probably didn't bother to swap over, and is likely non-functional anyway.
 
Fyi, I recently removed my gb system for a hei system on my '75 truck, so I have my gb system laying here.

The wiring description is correct, as noted by trevor.
The gb is grounded thru the black wire. The black wire just goes to any mounting screw for ground.

White wire, as described is correct, connect if you have a working decel module, or just leave it disconnected.

My gb system only had one power wire coming in, it was spliced (factory) into the black (coil + wire), in the harness between the gb & the coil +.
This wire connects to the red wire connection on the gb connector.
You will need to unwrap the wire bundle to see the splice.

I hope my description is clear.
 

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  • Holley Gold Box Ignition - Removed Parts.jpg
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Hm, ill forget about the white wire haha. But I think I did everything right, but I still have no fire. I have a wire coming from the ign switch on the column going thru a ballast resistor then to the + side of coil. I have the dist. Plugged to the blue/yellow side of harness plug on goldbox the only way it will plug in. I have the brown wire going to the neg. Side of coil and red wire going to + side. Turn the key and still no fire.:mad2: im guessing the goldbox is gone. Ill get a testlight tomorrow and see where the power stops flowing. I know its past the ballast resistor because it touched ground and sparked. And the coil is new. So goldbox is prime subject right now.
 
The ballast is not needed and should be bypassed for this ign system. It is necessary for breaker points though, which would be a fallback option if you still have the breaker points dizz from the original '72 engine and the gb turns out to be fried.
 
I have a 77 and turning over no spark, a mechanic just changed out the gold box was running fine and then quit, any suggestions?
 
Superwes said:
I have a 77 and turning over no spark, a mechanic just changed out the gold box was running fine and then quit, any suggestions?
Click to expand...

Troubleshoot the ignition system per the IH Service Manual then repair as necessary.
 

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Air + Fuel + Ignition (spark) in the proper mixture and at the right time forms the magical gasoline engine internal combustion pyramid. One or more of those legs is messed up. Fresh air intake is rarely a problem. Adequate, yet not excessive fresh fuel delivery should be the next easiest leg to visually verify and thus eliminate as a variable. Once that leg is blessed or repaired as the case may be and still no vroom vroom, you're left with the spark making system. Your "mechanic" replaced the remote module which did not solve the issue. The question I'd have for him is, was that just a wild ass guess, or did you actually perform some diagnostic process that led you to conclude the module had failed? I suspect it was a WAG. As WAG's go, that's not a bad one, but the problem with WAG's is they tend to be 50/50 in nature. There's more involved in the spark making process of your Scout than the Holley remote amplifier aka Gold Box. There's the coil. There's the pickup inside the distributor, there's the plug wires, there's the spark plugs...so on and so forth.
 
We replaced thelugs and wires before it went to the mechanic and it has spark going to distributor, following up from there. Here those boxes have a tendency to fail, any info on that and what is the best way to replace that system?
 
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