As a hobby project I recently purchased a 1985 C4 not running. It had melted down the wires in the ignition module in the dist. . A friend of mine bought it this way. My friend was a little lacking in experience and didn't know how to time a dist. , so he yanked the old one out and poped in a new one - not timed. It got an entire new dist. w/pickup and ignition module at same time. He also replaced the fuel pump when it wouldn't start. It has a gauge on the fuel rail ; he said pressure came up and it backfired a few times.

He lost interest and bought another Vette , this one was left for the spiders and mice for almost a year. The mice did a job on vacuum lines, plug wires , some nips on injector wires , etc.. Guess I shouldn't complain as I only paid 1,000 for it.

I have been reading anything I can including this forum to learn about the electrical. I timed the dist. which was off one or two teeth. Had trouble cranking it using jumpers to my pickup battery so I put a hot battery in it today. It cranked fair but I soon found I had no spark and no fuel pressure. I did all the tests in the haynes book - ignition module checked out, coil ok, pickup ok, dist bat wire hot, I checked good dist. ground, fuse link ok, bat cable ok, I did find low voltage at terminal A and D to the ignition module. I jumped the relay wires for fuel pump but got nothing.

By the time I did the tests (few hours) the 960ca battery had been drained even with key off. The battery was actually warm from the drain , sucked the life right out of it you might say. I am wondering if the mice ate something causing a short or the problem is related to the ignition module melt down? Some of the people on the forum are pretty sharp on electrical and I wondered if I could get some thoughts and advice where to look next?

I'd say a short caused the original meltdown. Charge the battery back up and put in line amp meter in at battery. See what it's pulling. Start pulling fuses until you find something. That's where I'd start.

As a hobby project I recently purchased a 1985 C4 not running. It had melted down the wires in the ignition module in the dist. . A friend of mine bought it this way. My friend was a little lacking in experience and didn't know how to time a dist. , so he yanked the old one out and poped in a new one - not timed. It got an entire new dist. w/pickup and ignition module at same time. He also replaced the fuel pump when it wouldn't start. It has a gauge on the fuel rail ; he said pressure came up and it backfired a few times.

He lost interest and bought another Vette , this one was left for the spiders and mice for almost a year. The mice did a job on vacuum lines, plug wires , some nips on injector wires , etc.. Guess I shouldn't complain as I only paid 1,000 for it.

I have been reading anything I can including this forum to learn about the electrical. I timed the dist. which was off one or two teeth. Had trouble cranking it using jumpers to my pickup battery so I put a hot battery in it today. It cranked fair but I soon found I had no spark and no fuel pressure. I did all the tests in the haynes book - ignition module checked out, coil ok, pickup ok, dist bat wire hot, I checked good dist. ground, fuse link ok, bat cable ok, I did find low voltage at terminal A and D to the ignition module. I jumped the relay wires for fuel pump but got nothing.

By the time I did the tests (few hours) the 960ca battery had been drained even with key off. The battery was actually warm from the drain , sucked the life right out of it you might say. I am wondering if the mice ate something causing a short or the problem is related to the ignition module melt down? Some of the people on the forum are pretty sharp on electrical and I wondered if I could get some thoughts and advice where to look next?

you got a bunch of things to deal with. good price though! your going to spend a small fortune to fix it & a bunch of time not knowing the whole story sounds like you got dead short

there is a post not fused just disconnect all the wires & you will find it if your going to ground that will do it you can tell it will arc

Thanks for the ideas ; I will continue the investigation .

I was also thinking - when it melted down the dist. there was a massive boom stero syst on board - what I know of these - they can melt down wires and cook alternators - cause all kinds of elect. issues. Thought I better ck out the alternator also .....

Question : There is a smaller gauge wire molded to the + bat. cable
; and there is a stand alone smaller gauge wire to + terminal w/fuse link in it - I assume this is the alternator cable- correct?

Well I got the old girl running - rough but running. No knocks or valve lash noise from sitting around and stuck valves - so there is hope for the motor.

The mice did their work under the hood - I don't think there is a single vacuum line intact - even the EGR line eaten. Some of the plug wires were eaten down to the terminal ends.

When it started, it blew dried up mice and nest material out the exhaust - Nasty - very Nasty !

I figure another $100 in parts to smooth out the engine enough to see what I have for a motor, and go on from there.

So far I have $1092 invested so I am pleased with what I have so far !

Thanks for the tips people - I'll update as the project moves along.

The before pics attached...