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overheated ignition coil ?

T

Tinster

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Some more curiosity question1.

1. Has anyone moved their ignition coil
off the engine block to a location not
so hot?

If so, I'd like to see a photo of the new location
for the coil.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

I have the single piece, 1969 air filter with
the twin opening pipes in the front of the unit.

2. Has anyone ever installed hoses onto these two
stubby pipes and then run air hoses into the fan shroud
interior area? I am thinking this would provide cooler air into the carbs.

Photos would be real helpful.

thanks,

dale
 
Hi Dale;

I have enjoyed your write-ups on your TR6 - sorry to hear you continue to have issues. I live in SW Florida (Cape Coral - near Ft. Myers) we have fairly similar weather. 3 significant changes to my 73 TR6 has eliminated the bulk of problems.

1) Replace the distributor with a 123 electronic ignition. Its totally electronic. No condenser to fail - only problem - it will not run your mechanical tach. I have had NO starting issues since the change. And my coil is on the motor - and used to give me issues too - not anymore.

2) Install a shroud on the inside of the radiator. I wrote about mine last week. Its a toyota truck radiator shroud. Plastic and with just a few cuts it screws on - you get much better air flow and if you want - can eliminate the cardboard front shroud for better engine bay breathing.

3) Replace the carbs with Mikuni's - they are amazing by comparison to the strombergs or su's. It will require a cable accel. linkage similar to Rat-co's setup. But the do not get vapor lock - they have stunning response and get better mileage.

#1 and #2 are cheapest. The 123 distrib. was about 400 bucks. and the shroud was under 20 bucks. The carbs are just under 800.
 
I widened out the coil bracket and inserted a strip of rubber of about 2mm thickness as an insulator between the coil and the bracket. This cut engine temperature transfer to the coil quite a lot, yet kept the car original looking.
 
dale Mine will be mounted on the fender where our relays use to be. The Ign. box will be in front of the wiper motor which is another common area to remount the coil.
 
I mounted my coil up on the engine compartment side of the drivers footwell by the wiper motor. Just need slightly longer coil wire is all.
 
tomshobby said:
Over the years I have driven 3 different triumphs, 1964 TR4, 1967 GT6, and now our 1976 TR6, for a total of about 150 thousand miles. I have never had a coil problem of any kind with the original coil in the original location.

Same here. On the TR4 the only electrical problem I had was the generator, and on the TR6, once the distributor ran dry and started screeching, a couple drops of oil off the dip stick got me home.
 
Thanks all !!

Some good ideas. My electronic ignition failed
almost out of the box so I'll stick with points
for now.

I'll post a photo after the install.

Can't afford new carbs- mine are rebuilt and good.
I installed a custom made radiator shield.

I was wondering about putting hoses on the air
inlet pipes and taking them thru the shield.

regards,

dale
 
Dale,

I hate to say this and don't take it wrong, but I thought that you just said the car ran great for a whole day of driving. Why the tinkering?

The hoses will bring a bit of cooler air in, but probably not worth the effort. Even the best Ram Air systems of the 60's only worked well on cool days and at very high speeds.

The coil should be fine where it is. I agree with Tom. My original was fine, but looked crappy when I redid the engine compartment a few years ago, so I replaced it. I still kept it as a spare and it is 34 years old. And the replacement is fine where it is.
 
His idle speed changed, increased, from what he emailed me. Sounds like the warm up compensators need adjusting. I referred him to go to the buckeye site and read up. He should be able to get them in spec.
 
I'm not so sure that the temperature compensators have that much of an effect. When the carb is cold, all the air entering the carb passes over the bridge. When the carb warms up enough the temperature compensator valve opens allowing whatever air that can enter a 1/4" diameter opening on the flange for the air box attachment.
That air actually enters the mixing chamber, but bypasses the bridge and the jet. There is no venturi affect from this air resulting in a slightly leaner mixture reaching the combustion chambers.
I've manually closed an open compensator valve and found it difficult to detect any difference in engine speed.
My guess is that it could be determined by a CO sensor, but not easily by ear or tach.
Then again there's always the exception to the rule and I imagine that how well the initial carb mixture is set may make a difference, too. If the mixture is lean to begin with, the open valve may tend to starve an already lean carb.
But hey, who runs their carbs lean anyway ?
 
Poolboy, what he was talking about is well within the range the temp compensator leakage, or maladjustment can cause. I hope he goes to the buckeye site and pulls it down. They have a very informative section(teglerizer.com helps too) on the Stromberg carburetors. In case you haven't researched it lately,

https://www.buckeyetriumphs.org/technical/Carbs/CarbsIII/CarbsIII.htm

I think it is very helpful...
 
You bet, I've been there and revisit it from time to time. I've learned a lot there.
 
Maybe I'm wrong but.......doesn't a coil that's too hot to touch indicate an electrical/ignition problem somewhere? When I was having those problems many years ago my coil would get so hot that you really couldn't touch it for very long. And the hotter the coil got, the more the car backfired, stumbled, missed etc. Once the problem was resolved, the coil got quite warm but never really hot. Even now I can drive the car for hours down the highway and the coil, while warm, never gets very hot and it's mounted in the stock place on the engine.
 
Ron,

I've been using the Buckeye documents for some time.

I am fine with everything except the

"bypass ajustement valve" ............

I have not a clue where this valve might be located.

d
 
On the rt side of each carb. It's the long rect. thing
 
There were several different bypass valves, and not all of them had adjustments. But I don't think any of them could be described as "rect." ... perhaps you are thinking of the temperature compensator ?
 
Here's another photo from Nelson, of the early non-adjustable bypass valve.

The temperature compensator is that yellow thing just showing at the left edge of the photo.
 
If that coil is getting really too hot to touch, that sounds like a ground problem that Dale had in the past that I thought was resolved.
 
Okay Cuz,

When you are on the Buckeye site, skip back to carb part 1, description and theory of operation and disassembly. About halfwaydown just before they get into removing the mixture screws you will see the bypass valve.

I thought it was buckeye that talked about adjusting them, if not, perhaps Teglerizer or VTR. But I know I have seen diagnosis and adjustment procedures on the web.

Maybe someone here can remember where it was and refer to the url?
 
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