washed my 304 and now it will not start

R

rsmo

New member
I have an International 304 that was running fine before I washed it with a pressure washer. I turned the pressure washer down and lightly went over the engine to just take of the dust. I have dried and cleaned distributor, changed spark plugs, flushed out carb with carb cleaner, took the bowl off the holly carb and cleaned with carb cleaner, and I also tried using starter fluid. It will turn over, but it will not start. Can anyone help?
 
I have an 1976 IH Scout II with a 304 engine that was running fine before I washed it with a pressure washer. I turned the pressure washer down and lightly went over the engine to just take of the dust. I have dried and cleaned distributor, changed spark plugs, flushed out carb with carb cleaner, took the bowl off the holly carb and cleaned with carb cleaner, and I also tried using starter fluid. It will turn over, but it will not start. Can anyone help?
 
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Be nice to know what year and make of International that you're referring to.

Probably got water in the distributor. Take the cap off and dry everything out real good. Then try again
 
You've obviosly washed away an important piece of dirt - but seriously the first thing I would do is unplug the two multipin connectors that come through the firewall and blow them out very well.while your at it take a wire tooth brush to the male pins, and if you have a small round needle file, clean out the female pins, then go around the edges of the female pins and try and close them up just a little. You also need to pull a spark plug and lay it on the motor somewhere with the bottom of the plug grounded, and with the spark plugwire attached, and turn the motor over to see if it sparks. If not, need to chase the wire back from the distributor to the ignition switch to see where you lost it.
 
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Water displacement 40...wd40 for short. It does what it says. Spray it inside the distributor cap. It conducts electricity. If the ignition system is un-modified, it will be the Holley electronic with external ignition control module...aka gold box.
 
Almost guaranteed that there is moisture in the dizzy. Spray the interior of the cap with wd-40 (only good use for it) and if you're still running points make sure they are dry too. If that fails crank it at night and look see where the sparks are jumping.
 
Hi,

I have had your frustration.

Assuming you have pulled a sparkplug, touched the electrode to something metal like an exhaust stud or engine block, and have seen a spark as you turned the motor over, I would suggest your motor is flooded with gas and or water. To fix this, you can pull all the plugs, shine them up, dry them off, re gap them, and if you can, blow compressed air into the open cylinders to flush out any other crap. Put it all back together, depress the gas pedal once to the floor, keep it at about 25% throttle, and then try to start it. This exactly worked for me today on a similar problem.

If you have not seen a spark, I would suggest your pressure washer dislodged/broke the contact of one of the little wires that goes to your coil. Could be any of the little wires that go to the plus or minus side. Trace where they go and see if there any any connection you can tighten or fix.

I hope this helps.
 
I got water in the resistor wire/diode on the coil and had to keep cleaning it when the truck sat through a rainstorm.
 
Someday you all motor washer's will learn not to do it ! Why, for what reason do you even want to do it ? To have a pretty motor ? C' mon ? Get over it, now look what you have to do to get it running again.... Gonna do it again ? Lol:cryin:
 
If the truck still has the stock 'gold box' ignition system, then the connectors most likely have water in them. Dry the box-to-harness connections and clean the metal contact surfaces.

It happened to me, long ago.
 
There's nothing wrong with washing an engine so long as you understand the basic tenant that water and electronics do not mix...then take the necessary precautions to keep water out of places it does not belong. If one does not have adequate grasp of that concept, then yes, one should refrain from motor douching.
 
I discovered yesterday that o'reilly's master poo dist caps do not like electronic ignition. 21 ohms resistance killed the spark from the coil and didn't allow the 401 (aka v400) fire up. New cap and rotor plus my spare napa ic12sb coil later and it fired and ran like a raped ape and cruised on home with a couple 4 wheel burn outs on the way. Ran out of gas this am when we restarted it though (or watered down fuel from last night's rain due to missing gas cap)
 
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