Hi again, I recently got my 1970 LeMans running. Bought it about a month ago, but have been manually plugging the positive from the HEI distributor into the battery as a workaround. I'm looking to run an ignition wire since I don't see one that will work. The previous owner put the HEI in, but doesn't remember where the ignition wire goes.

My progress so far: I've run a 12 gauge wire from the distributor to a BAT terminal on the fuse box, since the IGN terminal slot is empty for whatever reason (as stated in the manual, not used). This way I don't have to pop the hood to turn the car on and off, but it's still annoying and a ghetto fix. I've also tried plugging the said wire into an ACC slot, but the voltage drops significantly during crank, and isn't enough to power the coil. I've looked at the wiring diagrams in the manual and it looks like it has the BX port behind the fuse box going to + on the coil, and that slot has a yellow wire and a black wire coming out of it, and I don't know where they go.

Now, where should I run the wire? Does it go to BX? I would have to splice into yellow and I don't want to do that...

Does it go to the ignition switch on the steering column? I'm new to older cars so I don't really know what I'm doing.

P.S. I didn't do the janky wiring with the wires sticking next to the fuses, I'm not sure what that's about.

Here are some pictures that may help:

 

Any General Motors "pink" wire is only hot with the ignition key on. Any GM "orange" wire is full time battery hot. It has been of this design with GM for a very long time so pick a pink that you think will have maybe two amps of spare capacity and give it a try. 

Rick

 

On 7/28/2024 at 4:17 AM, B52bombardier1 said:

Any General Motors "pink" wire is only hot with the ignition key on. Any GM "orange" wire is full time battery hot. It has been of this design with GM for a very long time so pick a pink that you think will have maybe two amps of spare capacity and give it a try. 

Rick

 

Very late reply, sorry. I did find a pink wire paired with an orange wire, which I believe is supposed to go to some kind of kickdown solenoid, but which has 12 volts and on with the key, so I wired it to that and it worked. Not the cleanest solution but it works.