The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

I've had a strange misfire on the 1850 recently. O.K. I still run points , but I found it was due to the wire that runs from the points, through a grommet in the distributor base and then up to the coil.
It has been rubbing on something and was difficult to spot as it was on the underside. Its an easy job to pull out the grommet complete with the wire, and re-solder the connection on a good bit of wire. Problem gone away !

Well done Tony. I've seen that before. Dad owned an Allegro and he had that happen several times during his ownership of the car.

I think it's rubbing on the base of the rotor arm/bit that the rotor arm screws to. I had to move the wire out of the way on mine.

I to intended sticking with points, but it doesn't seem to be the popular option. When my car was fully operational I don't remember having any major issues. I like the fact that it's proper old school. Do you find you have any issues (other than the one in this post)

Hi George, I found my points needed cleaning and re-setting every 3,000 miles ,so it got to be a bit of a regular item in a daily driver. I found that if I didn't do it, by the time it got to about 4,500 the rev; counter needle would start bouncing all over the place. Then it would get a bit difficult to start.
So glad I fitted the Lumenition.
Tony

I've got a Lumenition that I was going to fit, but the recent ballast resistor coil post has got me a bit nervous. I've just about decided to stick with points. It's not going to be a daily drive, dry weather only, so it may just be a couple of days a year

The problem is more with the poor quality of ignition parts. If they did last 3000 miles then it wouldn't be so bad.

To think that my little Suzuki 800 has never had its points changed since my mum originally bought it in 1995 - (its on 58,000km now, not much but still 21 years old!) - makes you wonder about the quality of some stuff we pay good money for.

Keep the points. Its the condensor that is often the trouble and the poor quality replacement "lucas" coils a lot seem to fit.

Get yourself a Bosch blue and a maplin kit. Do away with the condensor and the ballast system and enjoy for ever...

Jonners

Ahh the good old days when points and condensers were reliable and every car ran on them!

And thats brings me to my point (get it! ). Back in the day when there were thousands of these cars on the road a producer could produce a high volume of quality parts because they benefited from economies of scale and pretty much guarantee that they would get sold.

Fast forward to today and there are roughly 1000 cars that use these points still around (according to How Many Left). To make a set of points and a condenser to a reasonable price point it is inevitable that cuts will be made and a cheaper solution will be sought, simply because there are less cars on the road. There is an increasing pressure on sellers to sell a quality product but remember, these companies need to make a profit to survive and without a lot of these companies parts supply would simply dry up.

Another aspect is the fact that these cars tend to be used less, points corrode and I suspect that condensers don't really like being left idle for long winters on a drive or in a garage regardless of quality.

I don't doubt that the quality has diminished and I personally don't know how long a set of points and condenser will actually last with regular usage. I have decided to keep the ones in RUK which will be a daily driver (no not a 'yeah I'll use it at the weekend daily' a proper daily driver) and see how long they actually last before fitting the optronic system.

I think there are more than 1000 cars that still use points! I reckon Mini's MGB's or even Moggie Thou's might even make that on their own! And not a Triumph in site!

Metros had a service interval of 9000 miles at one time - on points. They had some clever arrangement to move the contacts around and stop the pip forming IIRC. Been a while.....

For our cars the service interval was 5k or 6k miles. A condensor should therefore last a year. Back in the day I used to change the points more often than the condensor...

Jonners

Last century I was advised never to change a working condensor, this was in the days of original red-pack Lucas items. If the heel of the points was worn, or the points were pitted, change them and leave the condensor. If the points burned out in no time and looked like the end of a badly aligned spot welder, change the condensor and keep doing that until everything behaved. This was in the late seventies........

The service intervals for our cars when new was, points, check and adjust at 3000 miles replace at 6000 miles but there was never a fixed interval for condenser replacement. As an apprentice, starting in 1970, I was also taught not to replace a condenser unless the contact faces were badly "blued"

With the 1850 having a Delco distributor and sharing its points only with the FD Victor and Jensen Healey I can well believe only 1000 survivors using them! However the condenser is shared with many other Delco fitted models, most Vauxhalls used it up to 1980, along with the MkI-III Spitfire, Vitesse 1600 and all GT6s.

Steve