Hate to think what you'd do if I'd suggested the 3.3uF version at £1320.00 + VAT then
Oh, if you need 2 they can select matched pairs for you but it'll cost you an extra £2.00 per pair. And they don't guarantee that the matching will be right in operating conditions - only on the test bench.
Some people seriously claim that their ears are good enough to tell the difference using these things make
Aye, scary, isn't it? I've managed to convince myself that I can tell the difference between decent, 79-strand speaker cable and bell wire, but even that is questionable given that the thicker stuff was sold to me by a magic leprechaun who also promised that I'd live forever.
wahaay I now have 12V between battery earth and coil possitive, might have been something to do with the lock nut on the ignition barrel not being done up hence loose wiring.
Unfortunatly it still wont start and still has a crap spark. Oh it also now has a flat battery and I dont have a battery charger. Hmm should I pay £20 for a new coil or pay £45 for an electronic ignition kit, that may make the git start and even run a bit better.
Or perhaps option 3. Is it more likely to start if jump started rather than turned over on the starter?
Get it starting with what's there first rather than just throwing money at bits to see. All you need are three things:
A reasonable spark at about the right time.
Fuel getting to the cylinders. Just to the carb isn't good enough - it has to get inside the engine!
Compression.
You won't be able to check for any of those with a flat battery so the only thing you should be thinking of buying for now is a battery charger. Give it a FULL 24 hour charge because it's taken a hammering already and may well take another one while you're diagnosing the problem. You might even find with a freshly charged battery it starts - a dead battery will drop to a very low voltage when the starter's turning which will rob the ignition!
Well battery charged and it not started. But now ive gone and made it undriveable again.
Noticed the horn was not working so decided to investigate. On doing that knocked the indicator stalk which has now parted company with the steering column. It does look repairable but I cant get the lock nut on the steering wheel undone its too tight for adjustable spanners and my socket set doesn't go big enough. Looks like a trip to the DIY store is required. If I manage to fix something on this car without breaking something in the proccess it will be a miracle. Although if I was able to break the switch by knocking it, it probably needed to be replaced it also occasionly took 2 or 3 attempts to get it to activate the indicators.
I think I need to change my forum name to Numpty on call.
Flat battery charged and ignition bypassed. still loosing 2.3 over the coil so that be what being checked now. Theres next to no losses remaining in the ignition circuit anyway.
When I say indicator stalk bodged it is held together with hope and electrical insulation tape. When I thought it was repairable I was wrong. The stalk has sheared around the rivit into the base plate. Now held in place with electrical insulation tape but it will need to be replaced anyone got a spare? I want to rob a coil from my local scrappy any ideas as to what car would use a compatible one. Im not feeling the paying £30 for something im not 100% is the problem. Id say im 80% sure it is though
edit to change its loosing 2.3V accross the coil not 0.3
Pauldaf44 wrote:
Flat battery charged and ignition bypassed. still loosing 2.3 over the coil so that be what being checked now. Theres next to no losses remaining in the ignition circuit anyway.
Quite right about not paying out £30 cos it's not the coil and you do still have losses in the ignition circuit - 2.3 volts worth of them between the coil and earth! A coil fault couldn't cause that without setting fire to the loom - it'd have to be drawing abround 240 amps (basically dead short) with typical points resistance to show that voltage!!!
I think Ive got to the bottom of the problem. Somebody had knocked the neg lead of the battery so the last lot are rubbish. But its still losing nigh on a full volt. 1/2 in the ignition circuit and 1/2 over the brand new points. I have cleaned up every contact face I can find in the circuit and can only conclude that the new points are duds
I decided to test coil today and confirm it appears to be working.
I pulled a plug and conected directly to the coil HT terminal. and earthed the body of it.
I then ran a wire from earth with a loose end.
Turned on the ignition and dabbed the loose end of wire to each of these and as I pulled it away again it sparked
the points where
1. Coil negative = sparked
2. Dizzy lt conection = sparked
3. Moving contact surface = sparked.
The spark was blue in colour and similar to what you would see in a gas cooker stricker or a cigarette lighter. Is that enough of a spark or should it really be bigger
If you're getting a blue spark at those points but only a weak yellow one when you open the points themselves then that shows without question that there's a problem with either:
* The contact surfaces of the points (unlikely if they're new and, as you say, you've cleaned them but may be badly misaligned)
* The contact between the fixed point and the dizzy (unlikely - big area and screwed down tight)
* The earth lead between the dizzy moveable baseplate and dizzy body (likely, often overlooked but was suggested about 2 weeks back)
* The dizzy body and engine (very unlikely - it's bolted-up metal to metal with a big contact area).
* The engine earth strap (als very unlikely - if it was bad enough to affect the spark it's be smoking with the starter running)
Given the symptoms and the way they came on, my bet would still (2 weeks later) be with the earth wire between the moving baseplate and the dizzy body. But I'm only an amateur so may be wrong.
