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Re: Faulty Rotor Arms.

To: "Bob Brown" <BlkBT7@aol.com>
Subject: Re: Faulty Rotor Arms.
From: "Peter Hunt" <peter@hunt.sol.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2004 20:44:33 +0100
Bob,

Back in March 2004, I received an email from a friend who helped me with our
'62 BT7 Rally Healey in its preparation. He had read an article in the
February 2004 issue of the Practical Classic magazine by someone who was
having very similar rotor arm failure problems with an Austin Princess 4
LitreR,

He reports " Everytime it gets hot, it stops without warning - 45 minutes
later it starts again and runs as if nothing had happened. Now the root
cause has taken some finding, so take note all you British straight- six
lovers! There is a (huge) batch of after- market rotor arms out there that
are not temperature stable. It matters not where you buy them; since Lucas
lost the plot it seems that they have all been manufactured by a single
overseas scource. At a certain temperature, the black isolating plastic
becomes conductive and your spark goes down the drain. I have five new rotor
arms that behave in this way etc. etc. etc"

I have had three rotor arms fail in the past few years and have thrown them
out. Those who have had them fail just recently - have you tried them again
once they have cooled down ? It would be interesting to know  more details.

Are the 4 cylinder Healeys having the same problems or just the six?   What
was the ambient and likely under bonnet temperature at the time of failure?

Were the original rotor arms made from bakelite and these failures made from
a different material ? Is the rotor arm as used on Healey distributors also
fitted to other British cars, eg MG? Are they having any problems?

Peter Hunt

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Brown" <BlkBT7@aol.com>
To: "Patton Dickson" <kpdii@earthlink.net>
Cc: <healeys@autox.team.net>
Sent: Sunday, June 13, 2004 12:56 PM
Subject: RE: Burning up rotors - plus tech tip to get home!!! Long!


> Payton,
> We are putting up with this because it is possibly not a
> fault of a single manufacturer. Last year on the way to
> Conclave I went thru 3 rotors, that were purchased from
> VB as the "good" ones. They were packaged in boxes labeled
> Bosch, but closer instpection the fine print read "manufactured
> for Bosch in Germany". Thus they were not the "cheap Asian
> imports".  After I ran thru my spares the last rotor was
> borrowed from a traveling companion, it was a"cheap Asian
> import" from Moss. That incident occured almost one year
> ago and I'm still using the Moss part.
> I'm convinced it is not solely the rotors but a very had to
> diagnose problem that manifest itself by destroying rotors.
> But no one has suggested anything to look for.
> Bob
>
> Patton Dickson wrote on 6/12/2004, 10:06 PM:
>
>  > Why are we putting
>  > up with this???  This isn't normal Lucas bad electrics, this is an
>  > absolutely defective part sitting on the shelves!





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