It was a beautiful morning yesterday, clear blue sky, cold and crisp
after after a couple of degrees of frost overnight, but not enough to
have the dreaded salt-slingers out. What was even better was that 'Bee'
seemed back to full power again after several weeks where she seemed
unwillimg to overtake much at all. I had half put it down to using the
V8 too much, but the other day she just would not start atb all - very
unusual.
Timing light showed no flash so I suspected the coil. No. LT circuit?
No. Condenser? No. Getting to be a bit of a puzzle so I put a spare
plug in the king lead and layed it on the head - no spark. Now Ive been
a fan of silicone-cored leads for many years, I have found them
extremely stable, unlike the carbon string variety which are still
available albeit very expensive. I had noticed that the king lead had a
discoloured brass contact and sheath at the coil end, tested it with a
meter and found it open circuit. Had continuity to the silicon core
where it was crimped under the connector, but not to the connector
itself. Also had great difficulty in getting continuity from one part
of the brass contact to another.
Replaced the lead with a copper-cored and she burst into life. I
suspect that the spark had been jumping from the coil to the silcon core
- a not insignificant distance - the extra gap affecting performance
(and ultimately starting) and the sparking discolouring the cable and
possibly the contact (the other end was perfectly clean and shiny.
Ironic, since I only said a few days ago how I had had the same plug
leads for eight years and 25k miles and had no plans to change them. My
local Halfords (car parts) sells leads singly, but since they only had
orange and orange clashes with Black Tulip I am sticking with the (blue)
copper - cored for a while.
PaulH.
|