ok,
about 3 years ago we discovered *gasp* that the finest lucas rotors were
not being manufactured inthe home of lord lucas . if memory on this is
still intact it was india or pakistan(no frank! not "made in
china"...yet!) . our race morgan was having ignition failure after
failure . i was starting to think it was me and wel lit may be other
things i may had a hand in, it was not the ignition problems we had!
turns out the rotors look fine! BUT! under the center contact where the
cap's carbon button rides on the rotor , they were both burning through or
literally "leaking" current to ground to the main dist shaft! one i took
off had a nice white "dot" up inside and i cut it apart to find the rotor
material had crystalised and no longer was able to insulate the coil's
charge from grounding to the shaft. it's a place no one would think to
look in a world of points and condensers yet very frequent in high-high
mileage high energy ignitions! we bought a literal bag of 30 rotors and
it seems that manufacturing standards are so inconsistant that we disposed
of almost 1/2 the batch due to not fitting on the shaft without seemingly
needing to be hammered onto the shaft! while others fit and "wobbled" on
the shaft or the locating piece.
so beware of "lucas" marked rotors that are supposed to fit or "work" due
to what i guess is out sourcing and the country of manufacture.
chuck.
> [Original Message]
> From: Bert Shirey <bertshirey@zoominternet.net>
> To: <Spridgets@autox.team.net>
> Date: 05/23/2005 12:23:04 PM
> Subject: Fw: Sputtering on Acceleration, etc.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Bert Shirey
> To: Bill Gilroy
> Sent: Monday, May 23, 2005 12:17 PM
> Subject: Re: Sputtering on Acceleration, etc.
>
>
> Yeah, Bill. I`ve gotten those. Most wouldn`t go on the shaft, unless
I
> wanted to use excessive force. For some reason bashing something into the
> distributor with a mallet gives me pause. They went into the box of
mystery
> parts. It`s a big box.
> The rotor that gave me trouble fit okay and was on the car, off and on,
> maybe 5 years. (That`s about 3, 000 miles in Bugeye time.) Looks fine.
Kept it
> as a trophy. I still have no idea what`s wrong with it. All I know is
that at
> the time, I only stuck in the fresh one because I had kicked the old one
under
> the car and didn`t feel like fishing for it in the mood I was in.
> I had about given up when I put the cap back on and hit the starter
switch
> with my thumb that was sore from having done that all morning. The engine
> fired off cold with one plug lead disconnected and no choke, even.
Startled
> the living daylights out of me. I banged my head on the bonnet. Spilled my
> Scotch and broke my favorite glass, the one with the Bugeye on it. Woke
the
> cat, who isn`t allowed in the garage anyway.
> Sometimes I wonder if the problem might have been something else.
Maybe
> the carbon contact in the cap not making proper contact with the first
rotor?
> I never put that rotor back in to verify it was bad. I keep thinking about
> that ground wire in there, too. Better to leave well enough alone, I say.
> I don`t know how many times that hot lead has worked loose on this
and my
> first Bugeye and fooled me to thinking something more complicated was
wrong,
> though. I`d like to know how Jerry`s sputtering problem turns out.
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