My troubles are with a 1980 Spitfire 1500 w/od
>While driving down a road here, I applied my clutch and brake to stop when the
>car just died. It restarted and ran with no trouble but it would not take
>off in ANY gear as fast as it used to before. My guess is the overdrive (which
>previously was disconnected[electricaly] has suddenly found a way to engage)
That was my last message.. Now with a little better idea of what is going on.
Well its not my Overdrive.
The distributor my car has, had a bit of shaft wobble. So we replaced the 45DM4
distributor with another of the same number.. BUT the vaccuum canister appeared
different. We put the new dist. on and still could not get the engine to rev.
above 3000rpm. My friend guessed that the differance in vacc. canister
apearances was that one was an advance the other a retard. So we switched
canisters..
Still no improvement. He checked the Valve timing at TDC and found the 4th cyl.
valves to NOT be open as they should be. The car ran best when the timing was 30
degrees out, but still not above 3500rpm. Today we plane to check valve timing
and set the clearances. He suspects that the timing chain may have skipped.
He says when we check the clearances and timing he will know if the timing chain
has skipped.
Does any other person out there have any other helpful hints they can add. We
REALLY do not want to suspect the timing chain and would rather not spend $200
getting a new timing kit.(Not just after a $400 clutch)
Symptoms:
Car will hardly run with timing set at 2 degrees of TDC (Factory specs)
With timing set at 30 degrees from TDC (best performance) we cannot get
above 3000 rpms. When driven car has serious lag.
Distributor is brand new. Although we are using the old vaccuum canister
since it appears different from the new canister.(Old canister has the vaccuum
nipple on the back, new one has it on the front)
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P.S. Another trick we tried was, since the repair manula said my car originally
came with a 45DM4 dist. we set the drive dog at a 45 degree angle as it would
Be for a mechanical distributor..no such luck there either....
Gene Prall
j
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