Troubleshooting woes, so time for a joke!!

[Argess]

Well, my misfire came back with today's hot and humid weather, so I'm pretty much down to my Pertronix Ignitor as the last culprit. Don't have a spare, so may put the points back in and see what happens.

Being a bit frustrated and not wanting to ask for help on the same old thing, I figured a joke (riddle, really) might be good. So here it is:

Q/ Why to the British drink warm beer?

A/ Because all their refridgerators are made by Lucas Electric !!!

[patrickt]

An old rubber fuel hose leading to a mechanical pump can occasionally collapse under heavy-rev conditions when it is particularly hot. This happens a little less often than a coil sporadically giving up.

[trularin]

Very low float levels will allow the car to idle and run, but when you punch it, it/they will be empty before more gas arrives.

They drink warm beer because they don't know any better.

[Tommy]

The Brits don't drink warm beer. They drink beer at room temperature. During my visit, the rooms rarely got warmer than 55 degrees F.

[Dwight]

Hello Tommy,
I see you live in South Alabama. I live in the northwest corner of Alabama, Florence. We have 15 Cobras, two Coupes and a GT 40 up here. Well that's Florence, South Tennessee and the Huntsville / Decatur area. We get together every Friday night to eat and visit. We also attend a lot of car shows.

How many do you have in your area?

It would be nice to have a weekend thing for all the Cobra people in Alabama.

Tiger or Tide fan?

Dwight Frye algunruner@aol.com

[convincor]

try closing up the air gap on the Pertronix.
Just a little to much it will skip a cylinder.

[Barry_R]

Make sure you have a good ground wire & connection from the upper to the lower breaker plate. Thats caused me trouble before...

[Ron61]

I run a Pertronix in my 65 Comet and a few years ago it started acting a lot like you say yours is. It would start and idle but would hardly move the car. I put the points back in to get home and it ran pretty good so I thought the Pertronix unit had gone bad. I got another one and the same thing. Now this is very unusual and probably not what is causing your problem, but it turned out that my distributor shaft had just a little play in it and it would start to move some as it got warmer. I got a new distributor and put it in and the unit has now been working great for 5 years.

Ron

[trularin]

If you have a refit, it is a good move to bush the upper portion of the shaft so it will not wobble.

Grasp the shaft and see if it moves side to side.

What an opportunity for a comment.

[Argess]

Thanks guys. I e-mailed Pertronix and they came back saying their failure mode was typically go-no go, and not intermittent failure, although if there is a small circuit board inside, solder joints can crack and sometimes go open circuit when heated. So I've oredered another one. Doesn't hurt to have a spare should the need come up.....like now.....LOL.

I will check the dist shaft. It only has about 3000 miles on it, but I must say I've had a whine/whistle noise that used to show up once the engine was completely heated up that seems to be gone lately. Perhaps the upper dist bushing was dry and now worn. I'm pretty sure there's no perceptible wobble in the shaft, but I'll re-check, and of course, my previous checks were with engine cold.

I better doublecheck I am getting 12 vdc to the coil as well. Am off to do that now.


hmmm....thought my joke would get a better response.....chuckle. I do have another about corvette owners, but the forum software might block out a certain word...........

[Tony Ripepi]

Hmmmmm


Sounds like you are on the track to solving the problem.

Joke --- Jack Kevorkian as Obamas new health czar for the elderly !!!!!!!

TR

[Argess]

While waiting for my replacement Pertronix Ignitor to arrive, I decided to put the points back in. Drove about 20 miles and no misfires. Even tried asccelerating in high gear from low rpms to really load up the plugs with fuel. My high speed run was a little pathetic as I am leary of pushing it due to the recent misfire/crossfire problems. But everything worked as it should. Only difference was it wasn't that hot yet today, so I won't know for sure until the weather changes.

I checked the dist shaft for side-play. It seemed perfect. I also checked the 12 VDC at the + coil terminal. Other than a small voltage drop (less than 0.4 volts) due to the current flowing through the ammeter and ignition switch, it was fine, hot or cold (well, as hot as could get the engine today).

another joke, unrelated to cars:

Two peanuts were walking down the street.
One was assaulted.

...you may groan, but I bet you'll tell it first chance you get....LOL.

[Tony Ripepi]

Argess,

Sometimes there is a misfire due to crossover in the plug wires on the rear drivers side of the engine. You can not see it during the day but fire it up in the garage with the lights out at night you see the crossfire, if it is happening, high humiity and heat are the culprits. To fix it simply redress/reroute the plug wires. I have sprayed a mist of water into that area to see if the humidity is also a contributing factor.

Good Luck....

Tony R.

[Argess]

Thanks Tony. I already did that. Any wire next in the firing sequence can cause crossfire, especially when the wires are routed next to each other, such as 7 and 8. That's crossfire cause by inductance. I am pretty sure my crossfire was from bad wires and caused in the dist. Closest terminal to rotor may not be the path of least resistance due to bad plugwires, so spark jumps to next terminal. I did the "midnight" test and saw no arcing or corona, but I changed the plug wires anyway and the crossfire is gone. Just left with the mifire.

Misfire is only when really hot out, so I am waiting for more hot weather to do another test. So far, switching back to points seems good, but time will tell.

I did a Google search and found one guy in a British car forum who had the same problem. Replacing the Pertronix system with a new one fixed it for him. So I have hope......

[Argess]

Out today....about 20 miles. Very hot out. Engine full heated up. Not a miss. Worked great with the points back in, and this time in as hot a day as we've ahd all summer. I'll try to get some more time on the car before the new Pertronix unit shows up first of the week. I really want to confirm that the old Pertronix was weak when heated up by having correct operation with the points in the same weather.

sidenote: a shame really, that Pertronix Ignitor was the best value I ever spent. Engine accelerates so smooth with it, although brand new points work "almost" as good. With a timing light, the Pertonix makes a rock steady view of the timing marks. With points, there's always a bit of movement. And it really was trouble free for quite a few years....maybe it still is....time will tell.

[kurtmart]

Why don't the British build computers?

They can't figure out how to make them leak oil.