Have 77 Winnie with Dodge 440, been running fine, all of a sudden ignition appears to have died. No spark to distributor. Any ideas???

 

It probably has a bad ballast resistor ( 2'x3" 1/2 ceramic block) or possibly a bad pickup in the distributor

 

This stuff can be irritating to troubleshoot.

Remove the ECU from the firewall, scrape the firewall and the box mounting ears clean, and remount with star lock washers. Consider adding a no10 ground from the block to the ECU mounting bolts and the regulator mounting bolts

The distributor connector can be problematic, there is almost NO current there. Remove, inspect, and work in/ out several times to scrub it clean

Check the dist. pickup and reluctor for serious rust and or debri, and for strike damage. Check the reluctor gap with a non--magnetic feeler for .008" That's inches not mm. You can buy brass ones from O'Really

Work the ECU connector in/ out several times, as well as the connectors on the ballast. The Ballast is cheap, so I agree with above, replace it.

After that, try to determine if you are losing power to the system, IE bulkhead connector or ignition switch problems. I've even "rigged" a temporary pilot lamp up to monitor coil voltage.

Last, if no other ideas, "it's a tossup." Used to be a coil would heat up and fail when warm. I'd lean towards coil next, just a guess.

After that it's a tossup as to ECU or distributor

You CAN see if the ECU is working by grounding one of the distributor wires. I've forgotten which, try them both. That is, with dist. unplugged, use a test clip with key in 'run' and ground one of the dist. connector going to the ECU. One of them should result in sparks from the coil.

If you get this, then it's most likely the dist. pickup coil

 

one test i found. with reluctor gap set correct. disconnect the two wires fro the from the distributor. get an analog VOM put the VOM wires into the distributor wires. direction does not mater.. set the VOM on the lowest AC volt setting. spin the dist, the gauge needle should move. i have only spun them by hand, if you spin it with power i dont know how it will look. my idea is if it moves any it should be ok. however i have done this a only few times. i am calling this test as still experimental.

 

I should have mentioned the above. Put your meter on low AC volts, and hook it to the two distributor wires. Crank the engine or spin the engine. The distributor pickup should generate about 1V AC