I had the exact same problem in my TR3. I burned up three coils after
replacing the distributor cap and rotor. Went nuts trying to figure it
out. Then I bought a genuine Lucas cap and rotor- no more probs. If your
rotor is hitting the cap, you have a problem. I asked a lot of people what
the gap should be beteween rotor and cap but nobody knows. I would guess
about 0.030"
Stu
80 TR8
Stephen Hall wrote:
> 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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