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Oil cap shorts Ignition???

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chazevans

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I was tooling down the freeway last night when Gidget my 58 Sprite started to sputter and cough losing power intermittently . I started to pull to the side of the road and she starting running fine again for a couple of miles so I continued on. After a mile or so the sputtering became bad again and I pulled to the shoulder of the road and she came to a stop and would not start. A couple of misfires but no go.

popped the bonnet and saw that the oil fill cap had come lose and was resting against one of the plug wires. Any idea what may have happened such as shorting or worse yet frying something in my ignition system?

HELP!!!!
 
chazevans said:
I was tooling down the freeway last night when Gidget my 58 Sprite started to sputter and cough losing power intermittently . I started to pull to the side of the road and she starting running fine again for a couple of miles so I continued on. After a mile or so the sputtering became bad again and I pulled to the shoulder of the road and she came to a stop and would not start. A couple of misfires but no go.

popped the bonnet and saw that the oil fill cap had come lose and was resting against one of the plug wires. Any idea what may have happened such as shorting or worse yet frying something in my ignition system?

HELP!!!!
Click to expand...

You don't say whether or not putting the oil filler cap back on (and getting it away from the ignition wires) corrected the problem, but if it did, then I would expect that there was no permanent damage. It does sound like you might need a new set of plug wires, however, if the spark was able to get through the insulation of the wire and ground against the cap.

'Hope that's all it was,

Dan
 
Same question as Dan had, but it does not sound as if one or even two plug leads getting shorted would kill the engine. Make it run rough, yes. Sounds like fuel starvation to me, which could be caused by a clogged filter or line, or a intermittently bad fuel pump (that is, if you are running an electric SU in place of the original mechanical pump).
 
Shorting out the high-voltage wiring (plug wires) won't damage anything. Even shorting out the primary wiring, between the coil and the distributor, shouldn't do any damage.
 
Had this happen during a race one time long ago. Put cap back on and proceeded to next run which was the days fast time. Maybe metal oil filler caps are not the best way to go?
 
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