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6.8 miles w/out breakdown!!

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Dale,

I endured a spell of inexplicable bad running; OK idle but stumbled badly when driving. Messing with fuel, coil, even the High Tension lead between the coil and distributor made only minor improvements. I dug out an original Lucas rotor and instantly the problem went away. I'm now using the 1974-vintage Lucas rotor and hoping it holds out until I can find another!.

Further experimentation showed the #4 HT lead got no spark at all with the non-Lucas rotor, even at idle. I wonder if the rotor was shorting to the breaker point post, which sticks up and is closest to the #4 HT lead.

Here's the two rotors. There's a slight difference in the arm profile, so who knows.

Jeff
 

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Kip Motor Company is supposedly reproducing better/more accurate Distributor caps and I had thought rotors.

https://www.antiquedistributorcaps.com

When I still had points in my distributor, I had a condenser fail in the same manner that Dale describes. It was all over the place trying to track it down. I've also seen coils fail in the same manner.

Good advice on the try one thing at a time.

The Crane box died on my TR8 a couple of weeks ago. The PO had replaced the original ignition module (which were prone to failure) with the Crane. The coil tested fine and power was getting to everything, but no spark. I think I bought the last Crane XR700 available in the US. Everyone I tried was out of stock except VB. They had one on the shelf. Summit and Jegs were even severely out of stock and had big waiting lists. Crane themselves said it would be at least 3-4 weeks until they would have any for sale. Makes me wonder if they are built in the flood zone in China? Anyway, new module installed and all is right with the TR8 again. When those units fail, they usually fail full stop. No intermittent issues.
 
Paul offers good advice, I would like to add to it. Also replace the condensor. You are describing condensor failure. Had a batch of Honda ones go bye bye back inthe 70's. They were fun to diagnose..
 
RonMacPherson said:
Paul offers good advice, I would like to add to it. Also replace the condensor. You are describing condensor failure. Had a batch of Honda ones go bye bye back inthe 70's. They were fun to diagnose..
Click to expand...

<span style="color: #990000"> Sound advice, Cuz!

Did 1 thing this afternoon-replaced condensor
Car started immediately on 1st crank
Warmed up to 800 rpm

drove 800 L.F., 1st gear at steady 3200 rpm
returned and parked at home.</span>

tomorrow is another day.
Point learned?

Note to self:
Replace condensor, distributor cap and rotor
at 1,000 mile intervals.
Cheap enough.

d
 
Dale, good to hear about sucess today. Rather than automatically replacing them at 1000 mi, just have them handy and see what happens. Amos may surprise you.... :smile:

Peter
 
No need cuz,

A good condensor will last a loooong time. Way to tell if your condensor is going bad is to look for metal transfer on the points. If you've got metal building up on one post and pitting from the other post you need to replace the condensor.

In days of yore we would actually check the capacity of the condensor and go higher or lower, depending on whether the metal was on the positive or ground side post.

But then tuneup kits started including the condensor with the points. Because they started making condensors that would just open circuit internally and fail...

A good cap and rotor(someone gave you a site that looks worth investigating) should last at least 12000 miles.... Same with good, lubricated points and a condensor.
 
dale
I agree with Peter
I dont think you need to toss things out after 1000 miles, just keep a spare or two of each component for road side repairs, now that you know the symton of a failed condensor when that same thing happens you will automatically check the condensor first, good luck, hope you can now measure your time in months instead of miles

Hondo
 
<peeks in on this thread.....sees nothing but silence.....smiles and moves on....> :laugh:
 
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