First of all Leigh, please don't feel like the helpless female. I'll bet
that most every male on this list felt helpless the first few times their
cars expired on the road. Heck, I feel pretty feeble everytime a new noise
pops up. Second, ignition problems can be a real bear to track down while
you're sitting at the side of the road. Once the car is in the garage, they
are not that tough, but they do require a good manual, a monitoring device
(meter or lightbulb), time, patience, and a logical approach. Given your
impending deadline, I think you made the right choice in dropping it with a
mechanic. Just don't let this become a habit, young lady!
BTW, you may get lucky and find that the problem is a $2.16 rotor. Mine had
an internal short that set me by the side of the road this summer. Took a
while to track down because I'd just changed that part out in the spring
tune-up. I mean, a new part from Pep Boys shouldn't go bad like that, right
Frank? :)
Good luck,
Jeff
At 10:08 PM -0400 10/20/99, Leigh Ellen Potter wrote:
> This morning I had the pleasure of seeing my car on the back of a tow truck
> twice! The first time to get her away from the freeway off-ramp where she
> just quietly died. Attempts to restart just gave clicking noises. First
> problem - the starter motor and the flywheel had gotten friendly.
> Disengage that and the motor turns over, but no action. The coil's fine
> and I'm getting heaps of spark. Replace the lead from the coil - no
> improvement. The problem appears to be with the dizzy - she was giving the
> RACQ guy all sorts of strange reading that made no sense. So back onto a
> tow truck and over to a mechanic who has a reputation for being a wizz with
> British cars (especially Jags, apparently). I have noticed that in the
> last week or two the oil pressure seems to drop more than usual when she's
> idling (and the oil level is fine - an oil change made no difference) and
> she has been running rough. With only 8 days until my thesis is due, I
> haven't had a chance to really get my hands dirty though. I've learnt a
> lot about the car from this list (thanks!) and a few friends, and at this
> point I wish I had had time to learn more (though it was good to be able to
> talk to the RACQ guy and know what I was talking about). I hate being the
> 'helpless female' pulled over on the side of the road. We'll see what the
> mechanic says....
>
> Cheers
> Leigh Ellen
> '62 MkII Sprite
Jeffrey H. Boatright, PhD
Senior Editor, Molecular Vision
http://www.molvis.org/molvis
Mailto:jboatri@emory.edu
404-778-4113
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