[Healeys] A Mystery

[Tom]

I rolled to the side of I89 in NH a couple of months ago.   I replaced the
rotor, the car started up and ran fine until it rolled to the shoulder of a
little country road a couple of weeks later.   In the quiet of the country,
I could hear a little bit of snapping, and I could see a small electric arc
inside one of the electrical connectors to the coil.

After 50+ years of owners popping distributor caps off and wiggling all the
wires above, one of the connections failed from fatigue.   The wire was
close enough to the connector that it usually worked, except when it didn't.

I suggest firing up your engine and giving all the connectors a little
wiggle, just to make sure something isn't loose or fatigued.  If you hear
the engine miss, you may have found the culprit.

- tom


On Thu, Sep 21, 2017 at 7:31 PM, Richard Antal <rantal243 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Greeting Healeyphiles,
>      I encountered a mishap that begs explanation. On a recent road trip
> in my BJ8, I was cruising along at 70mph on I 84 in Connecticut, when the
> engine suddenly died. I cruised over to the breaddown lane and proceeded to
> replace the rotor with the newer reliable one. The car started, I went two
> miles and it died again. I replaced the coil with a Lucas sport coil. The
> car started and died again in 1/2 mile. I replaced the distributor cap and
> wires. The car would not start. Along came Dean Cusano, president of
> Motorcars Inc. who informed me that his garage which specialized in Jaguars
> was at my disposal one mile away. AAA took me there. Parenthetically, I add
> that I could always hear my loud electric fuel pump clacking away. On
> arrival at his garage, I detached the fuel line from the carbs, activated
> the fuel pump and a lusty flow of fuel issued forth. Dean suggested I
> change my fuel filters, both one just after the pump and a second in the
> engine compartment. The car started and I drove fifty feet into his garage
> where I proceeded to change the filters which he kindly gave me at no
> charge. The car started and I completed the 3000 mile trip with no
> problems. The old filters probably had 15,000 miles of use but appeared
> clean. How could fouled fuel filters possibly have caused the problems I
> had? If the filters were in fact the cause, how often should they be
> changed and would it not make more sense to have one filter in the engine
> compartment where it could easily be changed? Thanks for your thoughts.
> rich antal
> '65 BJ8
>
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