Tim you need to take a VERY close look at all of the wiring......Those squirrels love to chew the insullation off of wiring, and then the bare wire gets shorted to ground,voltage or another circuit, which can screw everything up. If you don't see anything there, then I would check your spark stength....you may have a week Ignition module, a faulty/cracked distributor cap, rotor, or even a bad pick-up coil on your distributor. Also did you check for play/slop in the distributor shaft? These can often wear out and become so sloppy they don't send a good spark to the wire/plug. Don't over think this....remember it takes 3 things for an engine to start, Air/fuel mixture, spark, and compression. If you have fuel and adequate spark, pull your plugs and do a compression test. Let me know what you find....

 

Do those trucks have a clutch fan or an electric fan?

 

Clutch fan... What does that have to do with the problem at hand???

 

Hanr3 I would also check your spark strength, Then check around the back of the engine around where you found the rodent problem. I just read about the wires between the ICM and the VCM being faulty, circuit 423 on that wiring diagram. Also make sure you check the connectors also for a loose connection. Let us know!!

 

I had a clutch fan freeze up on my 3.8 tbird and it caused lots of problems.

 

Thanks for the tips guys. I wont be able to get to it till Sunday. I leave for a 20 mile Boy Scout hike Friday night and return Sunday by noon. I'lll let you know Sunday night.

 

it sounds like a wire/ short to me.

 

Couple questions.
Which connector is C3, and how do I tell the pin numbers?
My Haynes book does NOt have a wiring diagram for my engine, it does for the CPI, but not the SCEFI.

Would it be worth the hassle of taking the engine wiring harness completely out of hte truck?

 

Con. 1 is blue
Con. 2 is red
Con. 3 is clear
Con. 4 is black
Removal of an entire wiring harness is one hell of a task. I would only do that as a last resort only. Do you need the pin-out?

This is a veiw of Connector 3

 

Update time.
I had a former GM tech stop by Sunday to help diagnose my problems. The major issue was the lack of starting, or rather the lack of cranking.

I cleaned the contacts between the battery and starter. Replaced the starter with a new one, broke the nose cone off the old one.
Cleaned the contacts on the negative and where it bolts to the engine.
Replaced the battery, it was marginal. Fortunately it had a 3 year free replacement. No cost there.
After all that, the engine would crank over a couple times and lock up.
I could crank it over by hand via the flexplate, the first revolution was tough, but then it would free up. Then the starter would crank it over until it would lock up again. Each time a strong odor of gas was present.
Pulled distributor to see if it was hanging up the engine, and reset timing. No change.
Disconnected the fuel pump relay and the starter would crank the engine over no trouble. Hmmmmm.
Pulled the oil dipstick, wayyyyyyyy to full. Like 3 quarts to full and reaked of gas. Took out the oil pan plug and I had a gusher of gas and oil, more gas then oil. Got it back down to a decent level.
Cranked and it locked up again.
This lead me to believe I must have screwed up the installation of the Fuel Pressure Regulator. My next task was to pull it and take it back to where I bought it from.
Former GM tech had to leave, which was fine. I at least had some general direction to go.

Compared the part to another at the parts store, same package, but the parts were different. They did a defective part exchange for me.
I put the new part in, and now the engine cranks, will fire but runs at like 91rpm.
Thanks to Kyles excellent timing instruction tonight I verify my timing. I got a feeling we didn't time it correctly when we put the distributor back in.

Hopefully after tonight, it will run again. However that doesn't mean I fixed my hesitation problem. But at least with it running I can getreadings off the code scanner that should point me into the right direction. Then again, with any luck, it was my fuel pressure regulator that was worn out.