The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

My sprint starts well when hot or cold.....until yesterday.

I took the car for its last MOT. MOT test completed, the examiner drove it out of the bay switched it off...and it wouldn't then restart.

There appeared to be no spark at the plugs. It would crank but not fire at all.

In the dark we, MOT examiner as well, determined that the coil was working and current was getting to the distributor but not any further. We left it for the night

This morning it started with no problem.

The distributor was re-built about 5 years ago with luminition electronic ignition. No problems until yesterday.

Might this be a luminition problem when the car is standing and gets very hot or could it be something else? It is the first time that it has happened.

James

I had problems with the Luminition system fitted to my 1300 Dolly.

Sometimes, like you, it would not start when hot and had to be left to cool. From not long after fitting it would run rough and slight miss fire when hot and cruising in the 50s. Everything looked at and swopped even things done in desperation over about two years because all those that know stuff said it will not be the ignition. They are bullet proof and work or fail totally. The coil was changed more than once because the symptoms suggested this was main problem. This was not helped by an auto electrician finding that there was no ballast resistance showing on the feed cable that should be built in. Was this the root cause of it all? Feed cable was replaced and ballast resistor fitted old style but the problem didn't go away

It was the unit, whilst trying to sort it one day it was found to be unbelievably hot, so removed. There were signs of arcing underneath the unit and the plate in the dizzy, it was black with soot. It was removed and a set of points fitted and no problems since. Now running on a cheap electronic kit with no issues.

After binning the Luminition I read on line that this was not unknown and was caused by the length of the fixing screws causing the unit to appear to be fixed down tight but a gap was left under it causing the arcing, so this could be worth looking into on yours.