Rant - or dont do every stupid thing Haynes tells you to

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philvy

Well-Known Member
Posts
2,288
Location
Frankfurt, Germany
Now, after two weeks of taking the carb to pieces, bathe it in phosporic acid, carb cleaner and acetone, changing plugs, leads, checking dizzy, adjusting carb and stalling on every second stop with having no power at all, I finally found the problem.

When I did the maintenance two weeks ago (what coincidence!) I've foolishly did what the Haynes told me to: lubricate the rotor arm in the dizzy... Now, I've not been driving the engine warm because of a coolant leak. When I did the water pump I did the normal maintenance, too. So I put two drops of motor oil under the rotor arm. When the engine got hot, the bloody oil vapourised and my electronic ignition gave the spark too early. I thought it was the carb which had to handle some really dirty petrol lately (****ing coincidence). So, I took it apart, and again, and again (then replacing all gaskets). Then I checked that the new leads and plugs were allright.

And what I've learned:
If you KNOW something is wrong, listen to your head and not the book. I've been told never to lubricate a distributor but with dry lubricant, and now I've paid the price with returning home not in 30 minutes, but two hours. Coming home at 2AM. Bloody traffic lights.

Rant over.
Have a nice day all, I had. Now taking the dog and going for a ride.

Btw, haven't put pictures of Betty on here yet. Bought her somewhen in March
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Sorry, but the Haines manual is about right - for a standard (non electronic) dizzy you place a couple of drops of light oil on the felt pad to lubricate the contact breaker plus a drop or two down the shaft for the rotor shaft bearing then a squirt of oil through the hole in the base plate to lubricate the advance/retard mechanism.
 
Well, it's the standard dizzy, the electronic part I have only triggers the spark so the points don't have to take the whole load. The "light oil" did build up a layer on the points anyway, and I didn't lubricate them! I put a drop on the shaft beneath the rotor arm. When I opened it up today everywhere in the dizzy was a very thin oil skin.
 
Ay, I have something similar. It's kind of an orange box with a switch (standard, off, electronic). I think it's about 20 years old, the last owner fitted it. The dizzy looks always new. Great thing
 
Never heard that one before, eletronic ignition systems would not usually be affected.
Thinking... I wonder if its an optical pickup whether oil was being flicked off and throught he light beam caused the pre-ignition, if it is an inductive pickup then this shouldnt really be affected.
Is the swearword 'sparkrite' anywhere near the said article.
 
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