[Tigers] Ground

[Jeff Holt]

Thanks to the list - again!

When I wrote about going completely dark on starting, the recommendation was
overwhelmingly that I had a grounding problem. I thought how is that possible,
since I had bought a brand new grounding cable for the engine to chassis
connection, and the engine compartment has just been rewired. So I opened the
trunk, and the connection to the chassis from the battery was very solid. Just
to check the cable I reached down and shook it and to my utter surprise the
cable came straight out of the back of the lead terminal clamp at the battery.
Huge grin! No corrosion, it had just never been crimped! Easy fix.

Now, the second problem was the rough engine running and I'd just had the
thing professionally tuned. I poked around the distributor and saw that the
little plastic vacuum tube for the advance was pinched. Right as it comes out
of the cap it hits the large lateral radiator hose and gets crimped. If the
radiator hose is hot, I imagine the clear plastic tube gets altogether cut
off. I tried as best as I could to push the radiator hose to accommodate the
tube and it seems to run much smoother. Unless a bad battery cable ground was
a possible cause of bad timing and backfire, I think this was the timing
issue.

Does anyone have a similar problem and is there a 90-degree connection piece
that could be fit onto the distributor cap so that the vacuum tube can come
off completely unrestrained by the radiator hose?

Thanks,

Jeff Holt
Huntsville, UT