Is there trouble in River City????????????? I fear so......
I have had two condenser failures in the last year also. Not on my race
car, but on customer street cars with the Mallory dual point. Sounds like
Mallory is buying cheap parts & they probably know it. The point about
checking the ballast resistor, grounds etc. all are correct and apply here.
What bothers me, is that there is nothing inside a condenser to go
bad..... and, NO, all condensers are Not the same in any critical way....
in basics yes....
A condenser is nothing more than a piece of tin foil layered with wax
paper & rolled into a ball. This works much like a shock, and absorbs
energy when the points open and close. When these were common on cars, a
good way to tune up a car for a repeat customer, was to look to see which
side of the points were pitted, and which side had the metal missing. You
then checked the capacitance of the old condenser, and put one in (new or
used, didn't much matter) with a higher or lower capacitance. After a tune
up or two, the points would wear flat. You then had the proper condenser
for the car, its electrical system, and the drivers style of driving. (any
of these things could change the required capacitance of the condenser).
The bottom line, is we are each looking for the proper capacitance
condenser for the system it has to service. When you get one that allows
the points to wear flat, KEEP IT IN THE CAR............ there is nothing to
go bad in it....
Now, my question is...... with such a simple object, that should never
fail, WHY is Mallory ( a quality product) having so much trouble getting us
something that will work properly...
We can experiment with different condensers, they do all do the same
thing, but the proper condenser will be different for each of us... there
just is no simple answer as to which one we should all install.........
Sure wish there was such an answer though...
Tom
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert M. Lang" <lang@isis.mit.edu>
To: <fot@autox.team.net>
Sent: Monday, September 23, 2002 1:26 PM
Subject: Condensor Question
> Hi,
>
> I know a lot of you folk run electronic conversions on your race cars, but
> I thought I'd thow this one out there for discussion.
>
> I had a condensor failure on my street car yesterday, much to my dismay.
> No harm, no foul - AAA-Plus came through for me.
>
> The car is set up with a Mallory dual point distributor - no electronics.
> Because this is not my first failed condensor with this setup, I thought
> I might try to set the system up with two condensors and possibly a switch
> to select one or the other condensor...
>
> I have no idea if it would be practical to do this or whether I'd be
> better off merely drilling the housing for a second condensor and just
> swapping them by removing the wire from the insulated post each time...
>
> If this makes no sense, please let me know so I can re-state the proposal.
>
> Bottom line - what to folks with real points ignition systems do when they
> have a condensor go bad.
>
> Now - as to why the condensor fails? I have no idea. I'd like input on
> that too. I have a funny feeling that I might have wired something wrong
> initially when installing my electronic tach recently. But I suppose I
> need to get to the bottom of the failin cond. It's a real pain to have
> this part fail when you're entering a highway and trying to blend into the
> idiots driving 70 in a 55 zone.
>
> regards,
> rml
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
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