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Michael,<br>
<br>
Check your battery posts. I suffered a mild rear-ender, repaired,
no apparent need for a new battery. Six months later the car
started dying, just as you describe. Drove me nuts until I finally
noticed hairline cracks in the battery case running from the
negative post. When the battery heated up the connection would
fail, cool down back in business, etc.<br>
<br>
Pete Pollock<br>
BJ7<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 3/19/2019 10:45 AM, Michael Oritt
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAPTa0B52Mu68Uj6WK9f4cQKhLu8o5JAidxp8J=30WvaTnJdmcg@mail.gmail.com">
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<div class="gmail_default" style="color:#3333ff"><span
style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(250,250,250)">Yesterday
morning I went out for a drive and after about five miles
the car suddenly died. There was no rough running,
sputtering or missing leading up to it—the car simply died.
I coasted to the side of the road and after about 30 seconds
since the key was still on I pushed the start button. To my
surprise the car started immediately, revved freely and
idled smoothly. A bit perplexed I decided to drive on to see
what would happen now that I was paying close attention. The
car accelerated smoothly and ran fine for about 1/2 mile and
then it died again in the same manner as earlier. I shut off
the key, popped the hood and examined the ignition system.
Everything seemed fine—all spark plug leads were firmly in
place as was the lead from the coil to the distributor. The
power wires to the coil were tight and the harness/connector
to the distributor (see below) seemed fine.</span><br
style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(250,250,250)">
<br
style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(250,250,250)">
<br
style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(250,250,250)">
<span
style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(250,250,250)">After
scratching my head for a couple of minutes I got in the car,
turned on the ignition and pushed the start button. Again,
the car started right up and ran normally. With fingers
crossed I headed for my shop/garage, about ten miles away
and got there without any further event. Though the problem
did not seem to be fuel related I decided to verify that
this was not a fuel delivery issue. I have a double-headed
SU fuel pump wired to a switch mounted just behind the
driver’s seat which allows me to switch between pumps as
well as turn the fuel pump off. While I was running the car
at highway speeds it ran perfectly on either pump and when I
selected the “off” position it slowly lost power as I
expected it to—but in no way like it had suddenly twice died
15 or so minutes earlier. This indicated I was not dealing
with a fuel issue but rather something related either to the
ignition system or to the primary wires that run to it. </span><br
style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(250,250,250)">
<br
style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(250,250,250)">
<br
style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(250,250,250)">
<span
style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(250,250,250)">This
morning I dove a bit deeper to try and diagnose the problem.
The car has a Mallory Unilite ignition system tied to an MSD
coil which has been in place and performed faultlessly for a
number of years. I removed the distributor cap and
everything appears to be okay, at least visually. The
interior of the distributor was clean and dry as was the
cap, leads, carbon contact, optical reader, etc. Mallory
specifies the use of a ballast resistor in the lead from the
power source to the coil and with the engine fast-idling I
tested 12.5 VDC to the resistor and about 5.5-6 VDC out of
it and at the positive coil terminal. </span><br
style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(250,250,250)">
<br
style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(250,250,250)">
<br
style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(250,250,250)">
<span
style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(250,250,250)">I
have a large low-oil pressure light that is mounted in the
dash in place of the original overdrive switch. It is wired
from the ignition switch through a 10 psi normally-closed
switch mounted in the oil pressure gauge sender line and
then to the light. I point this out because both times when
the engine shut down yesterday the light immediately came
on, from which I conclude that the ignition switch itself is
not the source of the problem. And though I did not remove
the ignition key switch the wires to and from it seem tight
and intact.</span><br
style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(250,250,250)">
<br
style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(250,250,250)">
<br
style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(250,250,250)">
<span
style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(250,250,250)">So
my question is: What do I do? I hate to throw parts at it
without finding something that appears to be defective but I
don’t know where to start any further tests, etc. I also
don’t want to simply wait for the issue to happen again. BTW
over the weekend I drove about 150 miles with no issues
whatever. Beyond installing four new plugs last week I have
not performed any work related to the ignition system. All
suggestions/questions welcome….</span><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="color:#3333ff"><span
style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(250,250,250)"><br>
</span></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="color:#3333ff"><span
style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(250,250,250)">Best--Michael
Oritt, BN1</span></div>
</div>
<br>
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