To a certain point it is. My car is missing its hood so i cant really drive it around anywhere, and so i will go out to my car and rev it up once in a while so it can stay used to being turned on instead of just sitting there. What my problem is though one day i went out to rev it up and i have to press on the gas to get it start up(im not sure why, but its also a 79 so its old) and when I did it starting smoking near the left side of the engine. I cant remember if it was gray or white, but if you were in front of the car facing it, its on the left side where it started smoking. It wont even turn over and im not even getting any power to my gauges or anything. Any ideas what might be wrong? What I think it is, is probably the starter or a wire from the starter to the firewall, but I would like to hear what you guys have to say. And yes I have a car cover over all the time when im not working on it. Thanks for reading.

 

1) Why can't you drive without a hood? I know some people who do!
2) You have to pump the gas pedal before starting the engine because it's carbureted. That sets the choke and gives the carb a squirt of gas. Usually a couple of initial pumps does the trick.
3) You have a big red wire (not the battery cable) that supplies power to inside the car that comes from either the battery or the positive battery lug on the starter. It has an inline fusible link, which is basically a one-time use fuse that's built into the wire (looks like a black rubber lump about an inch long). Sounds like you may have smoked it. Find it and check with a test meter or light to see if you have power on both sides of the link. If not, it's blown and needs to be replaced. If the fusible link is good, check your connections at the battery and starter.

 

1. Where I live. They would pull me over before i left my driveway lol.

and 2. Thanks for the help ill definetly check it. Give you an update tommorow.

 

Where do you live that they pull people over for no hood? Around my area I see cars without hoods every weekend.

 

No cops have ever bothered me. And I even got pulled over once for having noisy tires!
It isn't any different than having an open engine hot rod or T-Bucket. And a hood isn't a safety feature.
Does your state actually have a law against it, or are the cops just being ****s?

 

I live in Mississippi, but they do it just to be ****s. And yea you were right it was a fusible link. Thanks alot for the help. now i need to fix my transmission leak.

 

You're welcome, glad it was an easy fix. For safety sake, it might be a good idea to give your wiring a once over to make sure you don't have a short somewhere. The link burned for a reason, either a short or just plain old age. They do smoke themselves sometimes, just because.....
But, better safe than charry!

 

Well it wasnt the fuse exactly, but part the red cable must have melted while up against the engine and burned through and the copper cable it self is broken.(or it looks like copper to me). What do you think I should do? Re wire it back up?

 

Pull the wire and run a new one if you can and reroute it away from the headers/engine.

 

Do you think I need to replace the wire with a completely brand new one or just use a new wire and attach it to the old wire and at least move it away engine?