Help please. What the %&$! am I missing?

R

Rover-tragic.

Member
Evening All.

Let me walk you through it......

Replaced the points and rotor arm today. On the way to pick them up Winston ran nicely on 8x new spark plugs. The points and rotor just looked a bit tatty.
Got home and swapped new for old.
NOW THE &%$#! CAR REFUSES TO START!!

Tried the old bits again, still no goey-goey.
Even tried another distributor cap without success.

WHAT THE BLOODY HELL AM I MISSING FOLKS :?: :?: :?:

Yours with cap in hand,
RT.
 
Hello RT,

Sorry to hear that your Rover Winston is being difficult. It could be the well known Rover coincidence,..fix one thing and something else immediately fails or it could be.....

I am assuming that you had the gap set correctly? All leads connected, coil connected?

Actually Winston is telling you in no uncertain terms that what he really wants is a new electronic ignition system... :wink: He is tired of points and capacitors that go bump in the night...he wants reliability, fast starting and more power.

Ron.
 
Are you quite sure that you got the insulating washer thingie in the right position when you fitted the points? I've seen a few people, including a garage that should have known better, fitting new points with the low tension lead earthed then wondering why the car won't start.
 
Hmmm,

Well the gaps are correct at 25 thou and 14 to 16 thou. Putting the old part back made no difference. From memory, the base plate of the distributor is earthed via a fine braided wire covered with a woven black sheath. That hasn't broken has it?

Ron.
 
Try turning the engine over with a plug against something metal.. see if there's a spark..
 
When speaking of the washer, are you referring to the white plastic washer?
Where should it be oriented?
Mine is on the black wire then sits atop the yellow wire to the condensor.

RT.
 
Sorry, I'm more familiar with the 4-cyl so can't tell you exactly. But the white washer will be an insulator. What's crucial is that you have two low tension wires (one from the coil and one to the condenser) joining and transferring current to the points along the spring, but insulated from the base of the distributor.
So you normally have an insulator below the spring and one on top, below a nut. If an insulating washer is missing or incorrectly fitted, current passes to the base plate, bypassing the points and you don't get a spark.
Perhaps someone else can help with a photo or drawing?
 
Hello All,
Thanks for your quick replies.
Had another brief attempt at it last night before being driven inside by a swarm of giant, ravenous, man-eating mosquitoes.
Up at it again this morning in between the rain bursts.
Took everything apart and redid it, taking particular care to position the washers correctly.
First go had the car running perfectly for approximately 1.5 seconds then it turned into a lurching mess. It appears to be running on only a few cylinders at best.
Is it possible to "accidentally" advance or retard the rotor when refitting :?: :?:

Yours with distributor cap in hand ( :oops: Groan),
RT.
 
Hello RT,

The position of the rotor won't change your ignition timing. If the bolt securing the distributor is loose and you have rotated the distributor even ever so slightly, like millimeters, then that will certainly have an affect, especially if the timing has been retarded. Advancing the timing won't produce what you describe in that if the timing was way too far advanced, the starter motor will kick back, being unable to turn the engine over.

Are you positive that the rotor and the cap are a matching pair and that all the leads are definitely in their correct positions?

Ron.
 
Thanks Ron,
The distributor is secure. There is no movement whatsoever so I don't think I've shifted that.
The only other thought that I had was that I may have misfitted the leads when trying another cap but refitting and rechecking several times leaves me stymied.
I managed to get the car to move the few meters out of the rain but that was a struggle.

I have attempted to confirm the order of leads on cap. Some say the 8 plug should be at the hexaganol nut position with a clip between 8 & 4 and the other clip between 5 & 7. But I am sure that my leads were originally sitting one position clockwise of this.

Baffled,
RT.
 
If it ran perfectly, albeit very briefly, then it's unlikely to be the lead positions. Did you change the leads? And more importantly did you change the distributor cap? It has been known for distributor caps to be slightly different across the different Lucas distributors, so just changing the cap for a "Rover V8" cap could leave you with incorrect clearance between the cap and rotor arm. I'm not sure if the same applies to rotor arms, but i imagine it could. Try using the old rotor arm after having a careful look at the spike in the centre of the cap that supplies the volts from the coil down onto the rotor arm.

Beyond this, you could have triggered a fault elsewhere by disturbing things. The capacitor in the distributor can be quite fragile. And there are known to be bad batches of new ones around that fail intermittently immediately on fitting. Once you've changed that, see if you can identify if the lead from the cail to the cap is carrying sparks when the engine is motored.

I feel your frustration!

Chris
 
Greetings All,
After thinking through things logically, over a nice medicinal ale, I decided to eliminate the obvious.
1: Plugs; brand new Champions.
2: Leads; less than 12 months old (Land Rover genuine as recommended by reputable grease monkeys on this side of the pond).
3: Coil; less than 12 months old.
4: Points; brand new.
5: Rotor; brand new.
6: Distributor; recently removed and cleaned.

This really only leaves the cap!!
Being miffed and impatient decided that it couldn't wait till Monday.
Rang several places but trying to find one on a sunday is like the proverbial needle.
Then bingo!! A local shop had the cross-over reference for a "Fuel Miser" and had one on the shelf. Yippee!!
A quick trip down and back in the wife's car. Five minutes to swap over, and then..............

Oh joyous rhapsody of 8 burbling angels!!!!!

Sweet as a nut my friends.
I think that all of the new bits were just a bit too much for the decrepid pair of dist caps that I was using.

Thanks as usual to all and sundry for helpful suggestions.

Yours with old cap in bin,
RT. :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top