[Healeys] Idle dies

[Earl Kagna]

Hi Ira – fun, isn’t it!

Under the circumstances, check everything in the distributor – carbon centre button, make sure that the spring is allowing the button to ride firmly on the rotor.  Make sure that the rotor is not too close to the centre post on the cap – ie; riding too high and lightly riding on the bakelite.  Try another rotor – a known good one.  Check that there is no momentary grounding situation in the wiring both inside and outside of the cap.  A couple of remote possibilities – an intermittently faulty condenser or coil (or coil connections).  Could even be the ignition switch, or the battery shut off switch.

You may still have a fuel problem, but you’ve got to fix the ignition problem in order to get there.

It is somewhat normal for these cars to lose idle quality in hot weather.  You could have fuel percolating in a carb, float levels slightly off, a slightly leaking float needle as Mr. Salter says, air leaks – any number of things.  With HD8’s, the idle is set on the idle mixture bypass screw – the throttle discs have to be fully closed at idle – too fast an idle setting can mess things up.  Lots of little things can be not quite right, and the engine will run just fine.  By the time you get it all perfect, it will be time for another restoration!

Like I said – always fun getting it all good after a full resto.

Earl Kagna
Victoria, B.C.
BJ8, BT7 tri-carb

From: i erbs 
Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2016 7:14 PM
To: Alan Seigrist 
Cc: Ahealey help 
Subject: Re: [Healeys] Idle dies

new development 
car looses all power, bucks, backfires, catches and drive ok for a bit, then big backfires and bucking, then it dies. almost like a loss of power. it could be an intermittent power loss. Distributor cap looks like . explosions. NOS cap, rotor, points and condenser . Distributor was removed cleaned and re greased.



Ira Erbs 
Portland,OR
      _______                                  _______
     (______ \____1959 BN4____/ _______)
         (_________________________)
          BT7 engine and disk brakes

Please excuse random auto corrects and misspelled words

On Wed, Jun 8, 2016 at 7:07 PM, Alan Seigrist <healey.nut at gmail.com> wrote:

  Ira - with HD8s you can get leaking at the slow idle screw, which will cause you to lose idle when the car gets hot.  Try putting a couple drops of oil around the threads of the slow idle screw and see if that stops the problem.  If so, you have to take the slow idle screw out and replace and oil the O ring. 

  Also, the Teflon bushes can come out a bit if installed incorrectly, something else to check.

  Alan


  On Wednesday, 8 June 2016, i erbs <eyera3000 at gmail.com> wrote:

    Good point, I have HD8s, but the concept should be the same 

    Mr. Ira Erbs
    Portland,OR
    1959 Austin Healey 100-6
    please forgive odd words and auto corrects as   my phone cannot understand my misspellings 

    On Jun 7, 



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