Well last night I managed to solve my right hand cornering puzzle.
Many thanks to all those who replied to my original requests for help
with this one, although I don't believe I can award any trophies for
the correct answer, even though many of you suggested a general
inspection of the wonderful ignition system and I do remember stating:
"I find it difficult to see how a right hand turn would change spark
characteristics."
Anyway, I suppose it all started turning around when I began
experiencing an increasingly lumpy idle. Therefore I decided to take
plug 2 and 5 out for inspection, clean and then test again with a long
ride to insure that my mixture was reasonable. The ride was most
enjoyable - nothing like cruising around some country lanes in search
of a particular town with only the sun to use as guidance. Anyway, I
finally made it up to Scotty's parents house, where a feverish
sworking party was already well underway - yep those spanners were
flying! Anyway, while trying to avoid these missiles of chrome vanadium
steel, I took all the plugs out to check general condition and gaps -
I suppose I should have been suspicious anyway, since I hadn't done
this routine check for nearly, oooh, 2 months. Anyway, plugs were ok -
just a little carbonisation where I'd slightly over-choked. I then
decided to check then good old points. Taking the cap off revealed a
certain amount of slop in the upper casing of the distributer - seemed
worse than I'd noticed before - hmm, very odd. So I turned the engine
over to "open" the points - well try to open them - and then wiggled
the distributer casing. Hmmm - I could get a range of "completely
closed" (pulled over to driver's side) to "only just open". For all
those who haven't worked out my problem already, the right hand bends
would make the distributer casing move over to the left, making the
points gap so ridiculously small (or non-existant) that sparks would
not fly. Anyway, subsequent replacement and resetting of the points
provided a reasonable gap for ignition around all bends although I
must have a variable timing system which retards itself (is this a
built-in Lucas safety mechanism?).
Anyway, the car drove wonderfully well on the way home and I'm still
hoping that I might have also solved the hot start problem. That will
teach me to do 2 monthly inspections of the points - a fortnightly
inspection is the way to go. Now what am I going to do with myself
this weekend? - I'd planned on ripping the carbs off! Maybe I'll just
go for a ride instead! I wonder how long I can rely on this
distributer before it's completely useless? ($$$$$$)
Thanks again to all those who responded.
Cheers,
Paul.
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