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Jedi Knight of the Road

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bob hughes

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Yesterday I took the old girl ( BJ7 ) out for a spin and a refuel at my local supermarket. Lo and behold there was another Healey out but the Automobile Association - AA - road side mechanic had his head under the bonnet.

Well I could not resist and walked over to see what was up - It would not start. So far they had determined good fuel connection, and a good spark off the dizzy but no spark at the plugs. The owner had recently had the plug leads replaced and a new rotor arm.
Straight away I suggested rotor arm or condenser and to prove a point, drove my car alongside and took my rotor arm and stuck it in their car - of course it started up right away. Luckily for the owner he had the old rotor arm in the boot (trunk) and he put that in and yup it started right away.

Amazing how these new parts fail before they have really started - he had traveled but 10 miles. The AA man said that he had determined that the rotor arm provide good continuity - how I don't know, I can guess, but it sure did not do the job. I left them revving the engine and scratching their heads.

:cheers:

Bob
 
Bob
i recently ran in to the same sort of thing, well not quite that bad, with the TR6. i had the diz rebuilt, along with other things. when i went to start it up. it would idle fine. it would accel ok. but it would miss. thought i had a timing issue. when i tried to adjust the timing at all, it would die. it would only run with the diz in one spot.

had spark, had fuel.... but i had the wrong rotor button. i think the guy just happened to grab the wrong button when he sent back the diz. And i never checked it. after searching around for a while checking spark issues, i noticed the contacts in my diz cap were corroded. checked my button in the cap and it looked odd. too short. pulled my old button and it was a good 1/8" longer. put my old button back in and all worked fine.

nothing wrong with the new button, just in the wrong car.
 
The Healey Whisperer...is this the next level after Yoda? We should be so fortunate for one to check under our bonnets. Great story. GONZO.
 
NO one said but if the rotor has a rivet in the rotor's contact arm it is prone to failure

The rivet shortens the dielectric path to a ground between the contact arm and the dizzy shaft causing it to fail'

If you have new ones with a rivet , drill it out and fill the void with " JB " weld.




HI Greg---LOL
 
Keoke said:
NO one said but if the rotor has a rivet in the rotor's contact arm it is prone to failure

The rivet shortens the dielectric path to a ground between the contact arm and the dizzy shaft causing it to fail'

If you have new ones with a rivet , drill it out and fill the void with " JB " weld.

HI Greg---LOL
Click to expand...

FWIW, red rotors from Moss: PN 872-785, cost $6.99. I'd advocate buying a couple of these, rather than fixing a known bad design on this potential single-point-of-failure.
 
steveg said:
Rick - thank you for pointing out this source. Looks like a good one!

Nice to have a second source for good condensers!
Click to expand...

Steve,

Rob Medynski of British Vacuum Units has done a couple of distributor tech sessions for us. A very knowledgeable guy and those members who have had him rebuild their dizzys have been very pleased.

steveg said:
FWIW, red rotors from Moss: PN 872-785, cost $6.99. I'd advocate buying a couple of these, rather than fixing a known bad design on this potential single-point-of-failure.
Click to expand...

Rob has told us the same thing. Don't take a chance with any of the black rotors, use the red ones and you'll be fine.
 
Rob did both of my dizzy's. really good guy to get info from as well.
 
Don't take a chance with any of the black rotors​
OK Rick:

But all black rotors do not have rivets.
 
Drone Dog said:
Rob did both of my dizzy's. really good guy to get info from as well.
Click to expand...

As the number of folks that know how to work on our cars shrinks, we really have to cherish guys like Rob. I had to ask him to dial back his tech session a bit for the rest of us mortals as he was miles out front of your average Healey enthusiast.
 
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