Four years of annoyance solved

[blown motor]

I bought my Charger four years ago and have been chasing various issues, slowly solving them. A major one was that it would randomly start running horribly and stalling, then suddenly start running fine again. Along with that the tach was erratic. A couple years ago I replaced the MSD box and hoped it would solve both issues. Well the engine never missed a spark again which was a major issue solved but the tach was still erratic. So a buddy and I tackled that a while ago. A grey wire coming off the MSD box is the tach signal wire and whoever wired the car when it was restored chose to use a black wire to run up to the tach and then switch it back to grey under the dash. There was also a purple wire coming off the same bolt on the tach that the signal wire goes on. We could grab the bundle of wires coming from the box and wiggle them and make the tach misbehave. So we replaced the grey to black connector up by the box even though it seemed secure. Good, it works. I leave his place and about three houses away notice the tach is at zero. WTH! So back I go. It was still bugging me what the purple wire was for so I traced it over the steering column, through the firewall (zip tied together with three other wires) across the back of the engine and up the right side along the valve cover. Then it seemed to go under the alternator, couldn't really see, but I could pick up a purple coming out the other side. But wait, that purple is a larger gauge. ??? Let's try this again, oh, it goes up there! And, on the end of this wire that I now know does nothing is a male bullet connector, not connected to anything and not wrapped. So I said to Jerry, watch the tach and tell me what is does. It's working, it just quit, yes, no, yes, no. This wire was just dangling under the A/C compressor and if it touched steel it would short out the tach. Who put this wire here and why?! We taped the end for now and this winter I'll remove it. My tach runs fine now and we found the problem just in time because l was going to pull it this winter and send it to Redline for a rebuild. Problem solved and money saved. Win, win.
Sorry for the long story but I'm retired and the weather is crappy. Cheers boys.

[Jay Bee]

Good for you Murray, nice "feeling of accomplishment" I bet.

[cnm2215]

Nice! I bet that was a great feeling!

(and... thanks!.. now I know what an MSD is)

[MoparLeo]

Another good example of what can happen when we assume the last guy did something correctly. I think iot has happened to all of us at one time or another.

[Brads70]

I dislike wiring issues!    Glad you got it figured out! 

[Chryco Psycho]

We were trying to solve part of that the last time I was there in 18 , glad you got everything working properly 

[Spikedog08]

Great story!  Win Win situation!  Love it!   

[YellowThumper]

One more issue down...
I had a similar one many years ago. Out of the blue my car would die for a few seconds and then restart like nothing happened.
4 speed so ot would slow then kick going again.
Turned out to be a loose terminal on the coil. Hit a bump and it would lose contact then settle back in and go. Randome issue for many months finally solved.