Lets see you jimmy rigs, quick fixes, and all around funny mods!!!

[Critter]

Another situation years ago on my first truck. When I bought it there was a reman 350 sitting under the hood and it would start and run but was obvious that it was kinda a half-@ssed attempt. It was originally a 6 cyl truck and this was the first time it had a V8 not to mention an HEI distributor. Long story short I redid a bunch of stuff under the hood, painted it, and drove it everyday. After about a year it started sputtering and backfiring every now and then for a few minutes then clear up. It did this off and on for a few weeks and I could never find a problem, rebuilt everything in the HEI, checked the plugs, carb, etc. Finally I looked under the dash and the HEI wire that the PO put in was simply hand twisted to the back of the ignition switch with a little bit of electrical tape covering it. No crimp connector, no wire nut, no solder, nothing. Just twisted together by hand. It had come loose and was only touching together a little bit. The vibration and rattling around had caused the backfiring when the two wires wouldn't make contact.