The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

Nothing personal but this topic and these posts again and again and again do me and probably others turn away from this forum more and more.

Jeroen

The dolly wiki is supposed to address the often asked stuff...



Jonners

This is the text from the post i referred to :
Its the wrong coil, 100%.
(we are lumenition agents at work)
Optronic will NOT work happily with a Sports coil, which is what a DLB105 is. The primary resistance in the coil is wrong, and it will cause the coil to overheat and eventually fail.
You need to be using standard coil, i.e. a DLB101 if you have bypassed the ballast, or a DLB102 if the ballast is still connected.
I doubt the module is faulty, they normally work or they dont, but if you are worried you are welcome to send the module to me and i will test it on our Lumenition test rig, free, just pay the return postage.
Thanks - Matt.

it's easy no sports coil with electronic ignition, the guy at newtronic told me exactly the same as the lumenition agent above !!

soe8m wrote:Nothing personal but this topic and these posts again and again and again do me and probably others turn away from this forum more and more.

Jeroen

Well then I will stop posting and leave the club. I have found the help on here very good but if my requests for help are so erelivent boring etc I will now call it a day. Thanks for all the help from those who did.
Replies are sometimes confusing and contradictory. I sort advice from moss bros and fitted what they recommended, they originally supplied the electronic system they told me and sold me the 105. To morrow it goes into the garage I will tell them the advice given here regarding the coil now fitted and thank you all call it a day.

Bob.

Bob now you are making it a bit more personal. What exact answer did you receive in the post on your question other than some guesses, too much resistance blah blah and sports coil this and that. There is a search function on this forum and search for coil. 2253 results. Search for coil jonners you get 475 results. Search coil jeroen and you will have 139 results of trying to explain how and what. The right answers are on this forum for many times. I do not want to be the mister know it all but about ignitions and coils I do know all. I tried to give many persons in the past and present the answers they maybe needed but the last few years it feels as no use. All repeated again and again and again. If you want to leave the club and forum by only a comment of me that's your own loss I think.

Jeroen

Jeroen

I don't wish to be personal either but felt your post was very personal suggesting my questions are driving people away from the club. If they are then surely my interpretation of that is don't ask go away.

I sought advice on a repeated problem with my car that information from the clubs past posts on line searchers Wikipedia etc havent solved with a ballasted coil. Decided to go 12v and wanted advice on what to go for. From differing soucers again including here as you suggest differing advice some say 105 others 101 etc and I find a further Lucas one only for electronic ignition. 101 is recommended then when looking to buy two sites say this is not suitable for electronic ignition. Back to square one. So after taking advice from the installer went to their supplier the very well respected Moss Bros who fortunately are only a few miles from home. They advise me that the 105 gold sports coil is the one I need. Then its posted this is wrong you need a 101 full circle, and no one mentions at all the Lucas coil just for electronic ignition.

All I wanted was help resolving overheating coils both a ballasted supposedly the coil for the system and now 12v when all readings suggest nothing is amiss when obviously there is.

Please dont fall out over this guys.
Ive posted elsewhere about what's gone on before seeing this.

Rob I can totally appreciate your situation. You are caught in a maelstrom of conflicting advice, poor quality product and bad luck.

But Jeroen is in this case mostly right and ignition is something about which he is VERY knowledgeable. To ignore his advice would be a mistake.
Even if I dont always agree with him, there are also more than one solution...and its as much to do with available parts and the difference between what is readilly available in Holland as opposed to West London.

What is becoming clear is that a lot of "lucas" badged gold coils are poorly made Chinese copies - and so some have reverted to Intermotor. I'm of a mind because of my past experience to throw anything Intermotor in the bin...

The last "Bosch" coil I managed to buy online was a blue one - unballasted - but was made in Brazil....hmmmm. I suspect the ones Jeroen swears by weren't and were more likely made by Robert's (Bosch) own familly members in a nice little shed near Stuttgart..
yeah right...

But you get my point I hope...

Ignition components can be a minefield. Traverse it with care...

What I do know is that the 10 quid mapilin kit works well, needs a 12V supply and will start a Sprint on a ballasted coil
and keep the points...whether the ballast bypass feed works or not.

Jonners

Jonners

I have always found your advice and PM's very helpful and thank you for them. I do also understand that anyone can get peeved off by replying to the same questions. I was discussing this with a good mate today who made the same comment about his advising on another club site we are both members of where he would be your equivalent. He says if he hasnt got anything to say or doesnt want to contribute he says nothing.

I can understand geroems English could be an issue but when he posted he had offered no advice, only suggesting searchers in his reply to my comments on his post. But as someone who has pmd me says wading through over 2000 posts takes a lot of time and still may not give an answer. A question is quicker hopefully.

Other advice given includes don't bother posting its not worth it go to a local garage and ask them, so why be in the club? Once I've slept on things I may change my mind but my thoughts still are I will probably not ask for advice again here so why stay.

Does anyone have a real specification for any of the range of Lucas Ignition Coils please ?
I've left a query on the Lucas web-site but no reply as yet.

I have questions such as .....

What I wanted to see is a real specification along the lines of…
Primary Resistance = ? ohms +/- ? ohms at 20 degC.
Secondary resistance = ? ohms +/- ? ohms at 20 degC.
Turns Ratio = +/- ? %
Primary Inductance = ?H
Secondary Inductance = ?H
Maximum Primary voltage = ?V
Secondary peak voltage = ?V +/- ?V
Isolation to case = ?Mohms at ?V.
I would then want to see a connection diagram and a dimensioned drawing.
Plus an application note ( designed for use with contact points ( part no )) and a ?uF +/- ?uf capacitor . Plus a note on mounting positions.

I've Googled this and was amazed to find a complete absence of info; Lots of "suppler specs"; some obviously wrong, lots of mis-information and speculation but no actual concrete info;
Does anyone have a 1970's Lucas catalogue please with even basic info please ?

Thanks,
Tony.

Found this which is a nice simple explanation for those not familiar with electrickery:
https://nationalmaglab.org/education/ma ... ition-coil

Not wishing to add fuel to the fire but I find the problem with the forum search function is if you don't know what the answer is how do you know what to search for?

The forum search can be be a bit hard to find what you want I agree, but if you type in the question into Google it often brings up a post from this forum that is more relevant.

Tony

It does take some time to learn how to use the search facility, once you know how to do this it is an excellent and invaluable tool.
It's not a genius - you do need to know which keywords to use, and there are obscure threads I've been unable to find in the past which others have helped me out with.
If you search for
coil
then search in the results for
ballast
then search in the results for
electronic
then search in the results for
ignition
then search in the results for
sports
you get 18 matches in 10 separate threads.

If you Google "electronic ignition 6v or 12v coil" you get pages and pages of the same advice from different car and bike forums.

Some long standing members on here get so peed off with the same question being asked time and time again that they set up a dolly wiki guide............

When I was looking into what was the cause of the original coil failure and considering going to 12 volt I used the dolly wicki page and the coil recommended was
the 105. This is what was also recommend By Moss and they took into account the electronic ignition. Unfortunately its the wrong coil and was picked up by the garage as soon as the bonnet was lifted. These coils will overheat when used with electronic ignition as was posted earlier by someone. It was actually failing during their testing and it is being returned to Moss with the failed Luminition one and the car is going to have a standard ballasted coil fitted with a new ballast resistor.

As an aside my car should have a ballast wire installed as you all would expect but the readings suggested it had failed. The electrician said the readings he was getting would suggest it had never had one fitted. This may help others with very late cars who come across problems and with coils, check the supply first before fitting a ballasted coil.

I know I said I wouldn't post any more but I needed to pass that on and also if you have electronic ignition do not go for a sport coil as it could overheat.

Sorry Rob but what you are being told there is I'm afraid rather misleading.

The electronic ignition units which just switch the coil on and off cant make ANY difference to the coil itself. Its just
a simple set of electrical rules that govern this. The DLB 105 is designed to work at the full battery volts and the magnetronic
will just switch it on and off same as points....
What the 105 does have over the standard coil is a different turns ratio so the output voltage is higher than the standard coil

Whats causing the confusion is that some older electronic ignitions discharge a capacitor into the coil and use that and a faster
switching time with less dwell to up the output volts. This can cause the insulation to break down and the type of failures you describe.

The later "lucas gold" coils do seem to be not as well made as the older ones. I had an old stock one on my Sprint for ages and it was fine.
There is lots written about the later lucas stuff elsewhere.

What's often not understood is that upping the output voltage is not always such a good idea. In the old days people waxed lyrical about having a fatter spark and running leaner and getting x more bhp and 25% better fuel economy as well. Such talk was the stuff of bar discussions and about as true as angling stories on the one that got away. What happens is lead breakdown and misfiring and in the worst cases piston damage if the car is tuned too weak. In an ohv you only need a decent spark and its bad to run it too lean, so dont open the plug gaps too far (35 thou tops) and see how you get on.

Jonners