you said the battery had it's volts, but it might not have it's amps like you said. my mechanic told me that too. don't i know how to check for amps tho. he checked and my battery was a gonner. i lost battery, starter and alternator all in one day. yeh, lots of fun. hey, could it be alternator or whatever is in ur car? i'm grasping now.

so if the battery was dead of amps, wouldn't jumping it have made it start, or at least respond to the voltage. The book said it has a fusable link. Im going to check it if i can even find it.

12.6V may not be enough to get the computer running. Check bat terminals and clean. Check for in-line fuse near the bat. Check for proper ground connection of neg bat terminal, was there a cable going to the head from bat???

dang........good timing bill 6:37 on the dot. same time as my above post. lol

All the connections are good. Ive tested the positive, and negative. i havent found the fusable link, but im searchin.

hi again. Ive tested the fuseable links, and they are all good. Tomorrow im gonna exchange the battery with a new one (still under wal-mart warrenty). I hope this is the problem. Ive had to "ressurect" my old 454 i told you about in and earlier post. and yes, the oil is thick black and bad, so i guess ill be changing that.

the worst part is, after all of that work on the engine i cant even see if it all works. man that pisses me off. Oh well, ill look back on this and laugh someday.

I'd agree with Bill. double check all ground connections. a loose ground on the body or engine block could cause this. clean all contact points for the ground and you will be sure its not that. after that, I would just retrace some of the steps you took putting it back together. double check all the harnesses to make sure there isn't a plug or something that might of got missed.

With that much disassembly, there is a good chance something was knocked loose or not put back together tightly. Check everything.

hi. it turns out that the battery was at fault. For some reason the battery terminal was broken i think. My van uses the side post version that you screw in, not the top post type. when i screwed i the terminals nothing happened. Then i took the battery out of my car and i screwed them in, and it worked. so i guess the vans battery terminal must be cracked or something, but for some reason the volt meter reads 12.6, even with the cables screwed in. wierd.

any way i got it to crank, but it wont fire. im guessing its timing, because its getting spark, and its getting fuel, at least to the manifolds. It has a pressure testing thing right next to the manifold where the gas lines are. when i pushed it gas sprayed out. it wont try to fire at all. i checked the computer error codes, and it was all fine. i guess i put the distributor in wrong or something. Even if it is in wrong, wouldnt it at least try to fire, or at least backfire? When im cranking it, i can smell gas. Its not leaking or anything. any ideas?

i hope i can get this darn thing runnin. today i had a hard time getting my only running car to start. my only running car not counting my busted up 454. Everything keeps going wrong with this piece of junk van.

Mike, I just quickly looked at the responses here. What did you do to unplug the radiator? You may have just moved crap around inside it. There are specs for flow testing at a radiator shop. Pressure testing the radiator when it is drained might find a leak to the other chambers. Have you actually replaced the radiator?? A leak between the coolant part and the tranny cooling part might also explain the dirt in your tranny fluid. Let us know what you find. Doug

you need to pull the distributor and start again. number one plug at tdc on the compression stroke. if you use your finger over the plug hole, you will knoe the compression stroke. drop distributor in pointing to number one plug and try again. I am sure you already know this, just throwing out what I would do next.
if the timing is way out, it might not fire anything at all for you. no backfires etc....