[Healeys] update--BJ8--puttering, backfiring and shutting down

[Bob Spidell]

Thanks for reporting, Tom. When I read you suspected the Pertronix I 
thought: "This is the first I've heard of an Ignitor becoming 
intermittent (I'd always heard they failed outright."


On 10/10/2021 3:30 AM, Tom Felts via Healeys wrote:
> After 3 days of intense troubleshooting and racking my feeble brain on 
> why this happened, I FINALLY found out why. Background-------was 
> having a pleasant drive-----felt a slight miss------BIG 
> backfire--sputtering then cutting off.  Sat for a while, she started 
> and I drove maybe 100 yards.  Repeat of above------------sat beside 
> the road and checked to see if I had fuel to the carbs--yes-----pulled 
> float bowl lids and plenty of gas in float bowls.  had spark to 
> plugs.   Nothing obvious--so called AAA--got towed home.
>
> Next several days I tried the switch and check method----changed fuel 
> pump----changed coil,  changed rotor, replaced dist cap, pulled the 
> battery cut-off sw and directly shorted to body ground, checked to 
> make sure the low tension wire had not grounded itself.  ALL--to no 
> avail.  so I was down to my last idea.
>
> That was to pull and replace the Pertronix Ignitor.  As I was taking 
> it out, The cause of this whole mess became apparent. The hot wire 
> from the Ignitor to the coil had been rubbed raw on one side of the 
> wire, exposing just a tiny amount of the inner wire.  It was this 
> small amount of exposed wire that was shorting intermittingly.  and 
> this was the source of my problem.
> Apparently, over time the rotor had rubbed the wire until it rubbed 
> enough insulation off to expose the wire. This shows how long that 
> Pertronix had been in there.
>
> This was truly an AH HA moment.  Happy I found it but so very 
> flustrated over what it took to discover it. But in the process I got 
> a new fuel pump (electronic), new dist cap, new rotor, new Ignitor, 
> new Pertronix coil, and a lot of knowledge:)
>
> Glad the root cause was finally found and fixed and she is purring again:)
>
> Tom
>
> Anyway, replace
>
>
>
>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://autox.team.net/pipermail/healeys/attachments/20211010/7f4e8a9b/attachment.htm>