Sudden Ignition Shutdown

[ONZEDGE]

Hello. I drive a 71 daily driver and it is very reliable until yesterday. Driving down the fwy at about 3400 rpm the engine stopped for a split second. The remainder of the drive was uneventful. This morning howebver it happened again 4 or 5 times during a 20 mile drive to the office.

Coming home it became more frequent and it actually stalled while driving down my street in 1st gear. Following this stall was a loud backfire.

When it happens it is like someone kills the ignition -- just for a second.

It is freshly tuned and I have a new ignition switch. I run a mallory dual point with an MSD coil. All of the connections look good.

Please help with this puzzler

[Mitchka]

It almost sounds like a bad connections somewhere off of the distributor. or something. Does the backfire happens when it starts running again?

[JimmyZ]

Do you notice if other things go off when the ignition dies? If you loose lights etc it might be the connection between your main harness and starter. The wire I'm talking about comes from the hot post of the starter and crosses over six inches to the harness on the frame rail.

I had similar problems when this connection was acting up.

FWIW

[ONZEDGE]

I simultaneously replaced the condenser (because I had a spare lying around), the ballast resistor and also the connectors for the two leads to the coil. All is well and I thank you for your input.