Hi guys,
Today, I was going to drive the car to a Gulf Coast Healey Club meeting for
the first time. I live about as far out as you can live in the suburbs of
Houston so I the trip was 25 miles each way.
I thought that I had the car prepared fine for the trip, but a problem
reoccurred that I just addressed. After 21 miles of great running, the car
sputtered, went about a mile further, and died. I was able to coast to a
side road and a very nice guy let me park the car in his driveway and
actually drove me the couple of miles left to the meeting.
This acted exactly like it did when the rotor went out last month (see
previous emails). I got to the meeting, asked for help. Several people
offered, and when the meeting was over, we caravanned to my car. After
about 5 minutes, it turned out that I was right, and the brand new rotor had
burned through.
We'll a spare was lent to me, the car fired right up, and a member
volunteered to follow me home. We got about 15 miles, and the car
sputtered, then died. I was able to get it to a funeral home parking lot,
and we tried to figure out what to do.
We when to the AutoZone around the corner, and they of course did not have a
rotor. We scratched our heads and came up with two ideas. Make a
insolating gasket out of the heavy duty rubber insolating tape, and coating
the inside of the rotor and the rotor shaft with dielectric grease (probably
misspelled, the white type that prevent electric conductivity). We bought
the stuff to do both and applied it to the bad rotor. I am happy to say
that the car finished the last 10 miles without problems. I will now carry
both in the tool kit, and am considering coating the inside of all future
rotors as well.
I will say one thing, despite the trouble, it was an adventure, and the car
did pull into it driveway under its own power.
The question now, is why is this happening.
Last fall, the day the car was being loaded to come down here, it
mysteriously died. The shop replaced all of the ignition parts that they
had put on it and it started right up. I am betting that was the rotor as
well.
This means that this car has had at least 3, and probably 4 rotors burn up
in about 200 miles. I know that there is a bad batch of Lucas rotors out
there, but they can't all have been from that batch. My ignition system is
stock, what would cause an otherwise strong running car to eat rotors?
I have be told to order the rotors that Carquest sells as the are higher
quality than the Lucas, so I am ordering 3 of those (a 60 mile supply the
way this is going!!!)
Thanks, especially to Roger, Roger, Wade, Vince, Pat, and everyone else who
helped get me home
Patton
Patton Dickson - Richmond, TX
'57 A-H 100-Six - http://Austin-Healeys.com
Please see my parts wanted list at the site...
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