Message text written by "Wayne"
>1) Car quit suddenly - just like the time the white wire came off the
coil,
and like the time the rotor went bad.
2) Checked for a spark with the HT lead on the coil (leads to the dizzy) -
Nice healthy spark between coil and wire
3) There is no spark at the plugs.
4) Using a pertronix electric ignition (maybe I should go to points)
My buddy and I were stumped after changing out the dizzy cap and wires and
having nothing else to change out (no spare rotor or spare points/ignition)
we tried the HT lead again. This time the car fired up with me holding the
lead about an inch away from the coil! I shoved it back in and the engine
died. We did it again and the same thing happended. Wierd. Then the car
stopped turning over. I'm not sure of the starter has crapped out or not,
but think it might be the battery going dead. The electric fuel pump is
still going but the engine won't turn over... Hmm
<
Rotor. There is a rash of weak rotors out there. Your symptom can be
explained this way:
The rotor can not withstand the full coil voltage and will break down and
provide a current path to the distributor shaft and the plugs do not get
enough voltage to spark. When you hold the coil wire an inch from the coil
some of that voltage is dropped in the arc and the voltage at the rotor is
reduced to a point where it does not break down and the plugs get enough
voltage to support spark. I doub the car would run well under all
conditions in this state, however since the pligs need more voltage under
full throttle than at idle.
This is an interesting phenomenom but I have heard of a case where a car
would start and idle fine but once the throttle was opened the car would
die. This symptom would cause one to check everything but the ignition,
but in this case it was a bad rotor.
Good luck
Dave
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