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Point me in the right direction..........


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Car had tbeen running really well ........until a couple of days ago.

After a 10 mile trip, parked up while the missus went shopping and no hint of the trouble that was about to happen.

Started the car, pulled away then the car started running like a bag of nails. Really lumpy and when I took my foot off the accelerator, the revs dropped down and the engine died.

No idle at all.

Started the car up again, same problem. Running really rough and lumpy.

 

Managed to get the car home.....just.

Amazing how many car drivers you come across on Dartmoor ,who crawl at 10mph ,when you're trying to get you car home and hoping that you don't have to stop !!

 

Any ideas where to start looking for the problem ??

Need to get this sorted as she's due at Stuarts next week for some TLC

 

Steve

1971 TR6 running in twinHS6s

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Check for spark at a plug and measure points gap.

Check for fuel in float chambers.

Check both butterflies are opened by the throttle cable.

Lots of other possibilities..........eg spark timing.

Any unusual noises?

Peter

Edited by Peter Cobbold
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Hi Steve,

do the easy bits first -

Rotor arm

Dizzy Capacitor(condensor)

Contact breakers

Dizzy cap

Plug leads

Coil.

 

Check fuel flow to the carbs. Somebody reported something similar and it was the rubber interconnect pipe under the petrol tank. The inside of the pipe had gone mkushy and was collapsing with the pump suction (leccy pump I think).

 

Roger

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Thanks for the advice so far !!

Changed to coil for a new Lucas one.

Electonic ignition fitted.-3 months old

Dist Doc dizzie cap and red rotor arm fitted.

New HT leads fitted.

Removed and cleaned plugs. Checked gap.

 

Still runs like a bag of nails.

 

Now heading for the fuel supply route!.

Aagain thanks for the help so far.

Steve

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Hi Steve

If you can, do a compression test?

I had similar problems last year and it turned out to be the head gasket, after going through every conceivable part that could fail.

Fingers crossed it’s not, good luck.

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Points are simple to check - gap them with a feeler gauge and check making and breaking with a lightbulb, and static timing.

And they rarely fail suddenly. A gap closing up gives a hundred miles or so warning before the engine really starts to give up.

Thye have worked well for me for 250k miles so why change.

Peter

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Red 6 - whilst I am aware of the past quality issues with 'duff chinese' rotor arms shorting to the rotor shaft, the OP says he's fitted a Dizzy doc red rotor arm. These are known quality items from Martin Jay, so should be pretty unlikely to be troublesome.

 

Peter - whilst I respect your viewpoint and the thousands of miles travelled, I disagree in this case and my own view is that electronic ign is one of the good modern updates to consider for classics. My own experience is that when this was fitted ~15 years ago to our stag and has been great. True the stags twin points (due to 8 cyl) are particularly tricky to setup, and a general pain. With lumenition its been a simple fit and forget and a nice strong spark. also no condensor to fail either.

Hence I fitted it to my TR6, and again great fat blue spark, should be even spark timing on each cyl as no diz cam wear issue either. the result was better starting and an improved idle smoothness.

The only caveat is that systems are fitted properly as per makers instructions, they need a sound earth, and reasonable ventilation for cooling.

 

You can still check for a sound spark, either by running a plug out of a cylinder, or use of well insulated pliers to test spark from a lead to an engine ground point. Timing with a strobe is identical to points.

But from your above comment, sounds like you've known problem with elec ing in the past?

 

Steve - I agree with advice mentioned by others, and also Kevo's point about a compression test if you have a gauge to do this (and to hopefully eliminate any gasket issues)

As you've cleaned the plugs, after some rough running, have you been able to then remove each plug and see if any are obviously not running well? (either wet or dark plugs? )

Another idea might be to use well insulated pliers (make sure you don't get a shock from a modern HT coil) to remove 1 plug HT lead at a time whilst running to see if any of the cylinders don't seem to be make much difference to the way it runs when spark removed. This may help to narrow down the ones with problems.

 

Good luck.

J.

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  • 3 weeks later...

All,

quick update on this - well not quite Crawfie's question - but the topic of electronic ignition.

By the way Steve (Crawfie), Did you get your issue resolved in the end?

 

Its perhaps a coincidence that shortly after I posted reply #11 I tracked down the source of a minor misfire at idle that my own car had developed.

Occasionally at idle (and perhaps as pulling away) my car had started to miss the odd cylinder irregularly. listening with bonnet open I could hear a tell-tale 'snick, snick' when the stumble occurred, so drove out to a dark place at night, turned out all lights and yup when the 'snick' occurred I could see a small light show from errant sparks inside the distributor cap.

As these were of unknown age from when I got the car, ordered new cap and rotor arm from Diz Dr. fitted those and you've guessed it - still exactly the same!!

So scratched head, took off the diz cap and carefully inspected all around... then saw a few tiny marks around the top of the optical pickup of the lumenition, almost like small burn marks on a distributor cap contact point. So I carefully cut some insulation tape to fit and covered the top of the optical pickup.

reassembled and its now perfect - so it seems at certain times the HT spark was shorting down the metal post of the optical pickup!! Not heard of that before.

 

Hence small apology to Peter C - electronic ignition is not necessarily fit and forget as I'd suggested !!!

 

Cheers,

James.

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Crawfies car is having some TLC with me at the moment and FWIW the electronic ignition is one of the problems ;) As Martin (Dizzy doc) says Chinese **** that you can buy in for £3.50 a hundred :o

Stuart.

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Is that what you put on the PQI form? !! JJC

No point in even bothering with the form for them, I neither use them nor recommend them.

Stuart.

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The Accuspark or Hall effect electronic system seems to work fine with no problems. And takes all the slop out of the cam.

Lots of people seem to have had problems with the Lumenition system.

John

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All,

quick update on this - well not quite Crawfie's question - but the topic of electronic ignition.

By the way Steve (Crawfie), Did you get your issue resolved in the end?

 

Its perhaps a coincidence that shortly after I posted reply #11 I tracked down the source of a minor misfire at idle that my own car had developed.

Occasionally at idle (and perhaps as pulling away) my car had started to miss the odd cylinder irregularly. listening with bonnet open I could hear a tell-tale 'snick, snick' when the stumble occurred, so drove out to a dark place at night, turned out all lights and yup when the 'snick' occurred I could see a small light show from errant sparks inside the distributor cap.

As these were of unknown age from when I got the car, ordered new cap and rotor arm from Diz Dr. fitted those and you've guessed it - still exactly the same!!

So scratched head, took off the diz cap and carefully inspected all around... then saw a few tiny marks around the top of the optical pickup of the lumenition, almost like small burn marks on a distributor cap contact point. So I carefully cut some insulation tape to fit and covered the top of the optical pickup.

reassembled and its now perfect - so it seems at certain times the HT spark was shorting down the metal post of the optical pickup!! Not heard of that before.

 

Hence small apology to Peter C - electronic ignition is not necessarily fit and forget as I'd suggested !!!

 

Cheers,

James.

James. No apology needed ! Disagreements make a valuable contribution to running a TR.

Peter

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All thanks for comments...

 

Stuart - Ah, hope Crawfie's TR is sorted soon.

 

JJC & Stuart - well not surprised cheap chinese elec ign gives issues. As they say 'You pays your money.... '. As lumenition and accuspark, etc are around £180 IIRC i believe they are better quality. What issues do people typically seem to have with Lumenition? Perhaps a potential short down the optical pick-up might be one of them, but the electronics I thought were v reliable.

 

Peter - Ah all good, healthy constructive debate is indeed all part of it. :D

 

Cheers,

J.

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