Hello all!
As you may recall, I had some problems with my Spitfire's points
coming out of adjustment several times on the way back from TRF a
couple of weeks ago. Well, I finally got back to my garage last
weekend to fire it up and see what was going on. I tried starting
it-it wouldn't catch. Sometimes it sounded like it WANTED to catch,
but wouldn't. Checked the points and re-adjusted. Nothing. Examined
the rotor and distributor cap, noticing that there were some metal
shavings around where the cap and rotor had worn down a bit (too much
for only 1500 miles!). Put in a new cap and rotor. Now the car starts
after some cranking, runs for about 10 seconds on what sounds like 2
cylinders, backfires maybe once or twice, then chokes itself out. I
checked the coil and it was very hot-from what I remember, coils
aren't supposed to be hot??? Checked for spark from the coil.. Not
much really. Checked for spark from distributor to plug-I didn't see
any, though I know there is one occasionally as car starts as above.
Distributor shaft seems very wobbly, which I think may account for the
metal shavings from the cap and rotor. So, what's the problem here?
The way I look at it, it's either the distributor is so wobbly it's
not making good contact with the distributor cap, the coil is bad, or
both. Does this sound like a good assessment? I really don't want to
change the distributor, as this is an expensive purchase, but it may
come down to that. Anyone have any ideas? ;>
Thanks in advance!
Steve Hall
'70 Spitfire Mk III with a shaky Delco Remy distributor
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