Thanks to all who have suggested ideas on my poorly running Tiger. I will
state again what has happened twice. The car starts and runs normally. The
first time after 10 minutes of city driving speed and the second time at 20
minutes of city driving speed the car suddenly feels like it's running on 3 or
4 cylinders. When this happens the car can drive along a slow speeds and as
long as the road is flat and there is no attempt to give it throttle, it will
cruise along smoothly, but with absolutely no power. Feels like a little lawn
tractor.
Try to give it some gas and it stumbles and coughs.
On both occasions I limped home and the next day the car started right up
and ran normally. The two times that it acted up the temperature was in the
70's or 80's.
Car is a basic 260 with Petronix ignition and coil.
Many have suggested problems with gas, but if the carb or fuel lines or fuel
pump were messed up, would it start and run correctly the next day? I don't
see how a carb or fuel filter is going to clean themselves. And when the car
first goes into the "no power" mode, there is no sputtering like it's
running out of gas.
Two people have suggested that it might be a coil that is overheating and
cutting out. I'm beginning to wonder if there might be something to that or
some other electrical component. There definitely wasn't any great under hood
temperature in the short drives, but could there be enough to cause something
in the ignition system to over heat and act up? The ignition wires are a
few years old and have about 5,000 miles on them.
So, if there is a possibility of a bad coil, is there a way to bench test it
and maybe throw it in an oven to heat up and retest? I could swap to a
known good coil, but I hate getting stranded or having to limp home if I'm off
at
some distance. Checking things along side the road isn't my favorite thing
either.
One last crazy symptom?? When it was acting up the last time, I looked down
at the tach and it was at zero. After about 30 seconds, it began working
again. Not sure if this is related or not.
Thanks for all the input.
Mark L.
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