A few things:
- get a new solenoid - they're cheap and easy to fit
- You do need choke to start a cold engine - not too much though, start with a little and pull out further when the engine catches.
- Do not attempt to adjust the carburettor unless the engine is up to full temperature - you will end up with it adjusted way too rich and it will flood, run like a bag of ****e and eat your wallet
- Full temperature means taking it for a hard drive and doing it with the engine hot, not just leaving it idling - a landy won't get up to temp idling unless there's something up with it.
- Accelerator when starting - if your vacuum advance is connected correctly - will cause the timing to advance a lot and reduce turn over speed as it kicks back. Get engine spinning nicely with no throttle and advance the choke slowly seems to work best...
- Too much choke and stamping on the accelerator will flood the engine and fill the inlet manifold with petrol causing all sorts of weird behaviour, especially when the engine is not roasting hot
- Have you got a proper timing gun? I've found that setting static is quite hit and miss, whereas a timing gun is nice and repeatable.
- Plugs will be black unless you coast to a stop when running normally and then cut the ignition. A well adjusted land rover should run slightly rich at idle and so the plugs will have a little soot on them - so long as it is dry (when the engine has warmed up) then it should be ok
- Wet plugs when the engine is cold means too much choke or faffing with the throttle - easiest way to clear is to hold throttle fully open (not on and off) and turn over, better still do the same with the plugs out...


Good luck - tuning petrol landy engines is fun and can lead to a good nippy engine with good mileage...it's easy to get it wrong by trying to tune it when cold though!

dominicbeesley said:

A few things:
- get a new solenoid - they're cheap and easy to fit

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True, and it does sound as if one's required if there's a puff of smoke coming from it, but if the starter is actually engaging and spinning the engine, then the solenoid is doing its job perfectly adequately.

Not 100% true - if the solenoid's getting hot it means that the contacts aren't making properly - either due to muck or their being eroded. That means there is some resistance (something to get hot and make smoke) which means the motor won't be spinning as fast as it might...a fraction of an ohm makes all the difference when you're trying to pull a hundred plus amps through the solenoid (i.e. at 100 amps 0.1 ohm will lose 1kW of power in the solenoid!)

...or it might just be getting to normal temperature and burning muck off...hard to tell without stripping it and easier to just buy a new un.

A friend in the local club had a similar thing, it turned out the rotor arm was failing and arcing.

There was an interesting thread on the LRSOC forum recently, if you have the use of a garage try firing it up in the dark and seeing if you can see any arcing round the dizzy

It turned out his earth cable had become loose and just needed tightening up. I had similar but it took an AA man to diagnose it and tighten the nut

I also had the ballast resister screw fall out and jam the bob weights which wrenched the dizzy round 90degrees !

Tighten everything !!

Still ongoing , new plugs set and installed , new condensor , new points , leads seem OK am assuming its not them as when I remove leads one by one with engine running engine gets rougher , am thinking starting problem is solenoid so doing that in the morning , whats next , would coil cause misfire if poss that's next on list !

Leads are always worth a try - they don't need to be expensive ones. Depending on the type they get lots of small cracks which eat up the spark and in turn get worse as small sparks erode them further. They will still run ok at idle but might present problems when running at speed.

Coil is worth a try too...again doesn't need to be an expensive one just a standard 12V one. A resistance check on the primary and secondary of the coil is a good starting point.

Checking and rechecking the points gap - and finding some decent points or a powerspark are worth a punt too.

Must neatly be there now surely , new coil , no change , be starter solenoid looks nice but no change , getting leads thi s afternoon , fingers crossed!

Result , all done , guy at garage asked if I'd tried loosening the bolt on distributor and turning the whole thing a few degrees either way , not sure exactly what this has done but its never run so well ! Thanks for all the advice .

neilcmusic said:

not sure exactly what this has done

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You've adjusted the ignition timing.

I'm assuming that's OK ?

neilcmusic said:

I'm assuming that's OK ?

Click to expand...

If the timing was out, then you've just done exactly what was needed.

its ok to adjust the timing as long as your points gap is correct an incorrect points gap affects ignition timing i.e 1 degree of dwell equals 1 degree of timing