Ok. Seems to be sorted, kinda surprised me though but then again I'm a bit of a noob!
Got the car in the workshop, had a can of coke and said 'hmmm'.
Took the plugs out. All were furry black, some wet but quickly dried (petrol), one or two were crusty black from extra deposits!
Took all the ht leads off the car and set about measuring their resistances.
The leads varied depending on their length, the longest ones being around 5.5-6.0 KOhm, the shorter ones being about 2.5-3.0 KOhm. There was one anomaly, lead number 6, that was about 7 KOhm, which was too high for its length.
We pulled the boot back at the plug end and the socket was corroded, obviously got water in there. Plug 6 was one of the furryest aswell. The resistance went down to about 3.8 KOhm after it was cleaned up. Result.
My current leads are Sentech stainless steel wire wound conductor leads, pretty good quality. I had a cheapo set of leads in my spares box so I checked them, they were all about 14 KOhm, can't be good for reliable ignition!!
Proceeded to fit my new NGK plugs (I have used Champion for the last 2 changes) and measured the resistance of the old plugs.
The good ones seemed to be about 2.2 MegaOhm, worse ones about 4-5 MOhm, but one of them I couldn't even get a reading. As in too high for my multimeter. Bad!
My old man told me about a plug tester that Champion used to make, to check a plug would spark under pressure provided my a compressor. Interesting, but no longer available!
Long story short, threw it all back together and it seems to be cured. Not road tested yet, but in the workshop it didn't miss a beat, warm or cold.
Will give it a good run tomorrow! All good so far though!
Also checked my breathers over seeing as I noticed a little bit of steam coming out of the dipstick tube on tickover.
Removed the main pipe that runs from flame trap to the throttle body. Last time I cleaned this for the first time about 18 months ago it was basically blocked completely. This time it had a little bit of white emulsion lining it. What I did notice was the T piece that runs to the plenum was completely blocked on the T pipe. I had obviously missed it during my even more noob inspection 18 months ago!
Cleared the small hole out and it wouldn't restart so easily the first time, so obviously made a difference to the airflow. Not a big deal but hopefully it'll keep the air moving around as it should be!
So urm, cheers chappies, let's see what happens tomorrow
And joe, thanks again for the offer, what are you doing tomorrow afternoon? Cos I'm at work all afternoon so if you want to pop down for the bits and pieces that's fine...
Cheers