Mr Loucks said:
> The Tach drops immediately to zero and the engine dies. Sometimes it
> will start right up again but more often I have to wait 2 - 20 minutes to get
> it going.
>
> My mechanic thinks it could be the ignition module overheating causing a drop
> in voltage that kills the ignition. He said this is common, especially on
> prolonged trips. The trouble is, the car worked fine on three two hundred
>mile
> trips this past month. Usually the problems occur when the car has been
> running 5 - 15 minutes.
This is a typical mode of ignition module failure, but only if it's quite
consistent. Cry blasphemy if you like, but I just went through this with my
82 Olds Ciera. It would start fine, run ok for a while and then cut out as if
I had turned off the key, then would not restart until fully cold, which
took about 2 hours. Also, if I turned it off while it was still running but
already fairly warm, it would not restart either. This is the winter beater
which sat in this non-running condition since March, but we decided to get
it running last weekend. We picked up a new ignition module and voila! We
had another tunning car!
Good thing, too, as I blew the rad and overheated the TR7 the following
day. The temp guage died on the way to where we were going, and on the way
back, I heard some pinging and detected a hint of that awful burnt coolant
smell. We're changing all the hoses and I pick up the recored rad from the
shop today. I was really hoping not to need that spare head....
As an amusing note, I pulled off the highway and into the gas station, with
steam billowing out of the front of the TR7. As we stood around looking at
it for a few seconds, a guy came up to us and told us that he was out of
cash and that his bank card wasn't working and that he needed a few bucks
for gas. I flipped him a fiver. He looked at the car and appeared only then
to notice that we were having our own problems. He asked us if we needed any
help.
Jody jlevine@rd.hydro.on.ca - Toronto
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