My TR6 - Eating ignition coils or was it?

[Trever the rever]

Last September my wife and I had a very enjoyable tour of France including 5 days in a hot La Rochelle with our Essex TR Group in our TR6. The car performed incredibly well over 1200 miles despite the heatwave. I had already been away with friends on our annual pilgrimage to Le Mans in the previous June, another 900 miles. 
After arriving home I didn’t use the TR for a few days. Anyway when I did, all appeared well and I reversed the car out from the garage onto the drive and switched the engine off. A few minutes later after inspecting and cleaning the plugs I couldn’t restart the engine! Long story short - there was no spark at the plugs or indeed from the coil. (Last Spring I had bought a new coil after having had starting problems  having the head fitted with hardened valve seats, this was an independent distributor/metering unit location problem, so I had two known good spares in total).
So back to no spark, the coil was suspect and I changed it over. No joy with either spare, so 3 dead coils, how could it be? I then phoned a local TR friend here in Southend on Sea and happily went off to collect a known good coil. In the interim I had advertised my dilemma to our Group committee What’s App group and our Secretary Bob phoned me as I was driving home. (Hands free of course). He quickly told me how to test a coil, mine been the non ballasted type and to expect 3 ohms resistance across the low tension side. I was now home with 4 coils in front of me. Yes you’ve guessed it all 4 coils tested at 3 ohms!! What next? well back to basics, I quickly ascertained the leads, rotor arm and distributor cap were good. The last piece of the jigsaw - the 15-20 year old Lumenition electronic ignition module sitting in the distributor. Out came the spares from the boot ( yes I’ve carried new points and condenser for all those years) and 30 mins later the car was running very nicely. 

Is there any learning here? So last September when I replaced the coil, I’m now thinking in reality the ignition module had played up briefly. Yesterday it packed up for good? I’m going to check it once more on the car. It seems a retrograde step going back to the contact breaker in the 21st century but there was some sort of satisfaction knowing the TR is revving away purely as a result of a two tiny surfaces moving at an incredible rate towards and away from one another. I’ll let the Forum know how I get on. 

[Waldi]

Hi Trevor,

 the learning is that all (or most of?) the electronic Ignitions we can buy for our cars work better  as long as they work, I.e. no periodic readjusting of points needed), but when they fail you cannot fix them, so you need a set of points & condensor with you (or a 2nd electronic ignition).
 

The old style points & condensor will require regular maintenance and can be replaced on the roadside if you have spares with you.

So the main overall difference is:
Less maintenance until the electronic ignition module fails.
 

Cheers,

Waldi

[Z320]

Hi Trevor,

I had "similar" problems with an electronic contact braker,

a friend explained me why and I told this here at the forum.

But no one believed me.

I also switched back to classic contact brakers until I have time to have a closer look on the problem.

Ciao, Marco

[Z320]

With classic contact brakers the car runs well since I fitted them back.

[Trever the rever]

Thanks and good to hear the experiences, I’m currently undecided as it’s another cost in the short term for the electronic module, but I do have spare points! Trips are limited for a while so I’ll see how it runs on the points for now. 

[Casar66]

Hi Marco,

I remember your "problem".  wasn't it the position of the finger in relation to the cylinders of the distributor? The finger was always a little late position and then with bad luck the contact got lost, especially at higher revs?

At my car the finger was also not optimal but not critical. Even with the micrometer adjustment full open  it was not possible to get a very good position. That weekend we had a closer look on it with a very nice professional test stand of Peter Q. After that I am quiet sure that the problem with the fingers position has nothing to do if you use a pick up or old school points. In my opinion it is just a too large tolerance in manufacturing by Lucas. 

The problem with the pick up is not the pickup in principal. It is again a too large manufacturing tolerance. The magnets in the magnet sleeve are not positioned exactly the same when they get moulded in plastic. In my Pertronix II for example it was cylinder no.4 with a tolerance of app. 5 degree compare to the others. If we set the magnet sleeve one step back on the shafts' hexagon it was cylinder 4. And when the tolerance of the magnet positions is too large and the tolerance in the Lucas distributor comes on top you have a big problem. Switching back to points excludes the tolerance of the magnet sleeve at least.

 

[astontr6]

3 hours ago, Trever the rever said:

Last September my wife and I had a very enjoyable tour of France including 5 days in a hot La Rochelle with our Essex TR Group in our TR6. The car performed incredibly well over 1200 miles despite the heatwave. I had already been away with friends on our annual pilgrimage to Le Mans in the previous June, another 900 miles. 
After arriving home I didn’t use the TR for a few days. Anyway when I did, all appeared well and I reversed the car out from the garage onto the drive and switched the engine off. A few minutes later after inspecting and cleaning the plugs I couldn’t restart the engine! Long story short - there was no spark at the plugs or indeed from the coil. (Last Spring I had bought a new coil after having had starting problems  having the head fitted with hardened valve seats, this was an independent distributor/metering unit location problem, so I had two known good spares in total).
So back to no spark, the coil was suspect and I changed it over. No joy with either spare, so 3 dead coils, how could it be? I then phoned a local TR friend here in Southend on Sea and happily went off to collect a known good coil. In the interim I had advertised my dilemma to our Group committee What’s App group and our Secretary Bob phoned me as I was driving home. (Hands free of course). He quickly told me how to test a coil, mine been the non ballasted type and to expect 3 ohms resistance across the low tension side. I was now home with 4 coils in front of me. Yes you’ve guessed it all 4 coils tested at 3 ohms!! What next? well back to basics, I quickly ascertained the leads, rotor arm and distributor cap were good. The last piece of the jigsaw - the 15-20 year old Lumenition electronic ignition module sitting in the distributor. Out came the spares from the boot ( yes I’ve carried new points and condenser for all those years) and 30 mins later the car was running very nicely. 

Is there any learning here? So last September when I replaced the coil, I’m now thinking in reality the ignition module had played up briefly. Yesterday it packed up for good? I’m going to check it once more on the car. It seems a retrograde step going back to the contact breaker in the 21st century but there was some sort of satisfaction knowing the TR is revving away purely as a result of a two tiny surfaces moving at an incredible rate towards and away from one another. I’ll let the Forum know how I get on. 

Two things I have learnt about ignition systems:

1) Whose coils are you using? If they are the cheap and cheerful type bin them! A local car electrics man near me has still got a LUCAS coil tester and when he tests these types of coils, they go straight into the bin. Even new ones!!! He will only fit USA or German manufactured ones!

2) Your Lumenition  electronic ignition can be sent back to Lumenition for test and repair if necessary as I did this on a 25 year old system and they charged me £20. I also learnt that these systems do not like Resistive spark plugs or that type of plug cap, they are designed to work on supressed leads only.

Bruce.

[Trever the rever]

Thanks Bruce, that’s useful to know regarding the Lumenition unit is salvageable. I’ll give them a ring tomorrow. Regards Trevor 

[cp25616]

I bought my second current TR6pi about 4 years ago now and drove it out of the garage to do some work on it and guess what, yep wouldn't start for love nor money. It too was fitted with a Lumenition  electronic and when I was trying to start it my son exclaimed "Dad there's smoke in the engine bay". 

Smoke was coming from the Lumenition box. Like Trevor I fitted points and condenser from an old dizzy I had lying around and bingo away we go. needless to say the Lumenition was chucked  in the bin and frankly I never will fit one of these devices again. If something goes wrong with the old set up its easily fixed and you aren't left stranded on a roadside somewhere .

I now run points and condensers on both TR6's and zero problems.

Alan G

[Mk2 Chopper]

I run points and condenser, good to have something to make sure you service/maintain the car.

Makes me laugh when people always carry points and condenser after fitting electronic ignition.

Gareth

[Robin Powell]

I was very pleased to have the old points and condenser when my Newtronic Electronic ignition failed in France.  It only took a few minutes to replace the points assembly already mounted on the plate.  

[Andy Moltu]

8 hours ago, Mk2 Chopper said:

I run points and condenser, good to have something to make sure you service/maintain the car.

Makes me laugh when people always carry points and condenser after fitting electronic ignition.

Gareth

Do you carry a spare set of points with you?

No parts last forever. In the last 33 years of driving TRs I have conked out twice because of condensers and once because of a coil failure. 

Eventually the electronic ignition on the cars will fail. I have had my money’s worth out of the Newtronic (on the 6 for over 25 years) 10 years for the Luminition on the Stag (on it already when I got the car) The 4A has had an ebay cheapie for 2 years. 

The boot of each has the original points and kit in the boot but also have cheapie modules for all 3.

The only car I never fitted electronic ignition to was the 7 and that took 3 condensers before I got it started. The quality of the supplies of condensers is frustratingly poor.

[astontr6]

15 hours ago, Andy Moltu said:

Do you carry a spare set of points with you?

No parts last forever. In the last 33 years of driving TRs I have conked out twice because of condensers and once because of a coil failure. 

Eventually the electronic ignition on the cars will fail. I have had my money’s worth out of the Newtronic (on the 6 for over 25 years) 10 years for the Luminition on the Stag (on it already when I got the car) The 4A has had an ebay cheapie for 2 years. 

The boot of each has the original points and kit in the boot but also have cheapie modules for all 3.

The only car I never fitted electronic ignition to was the 7 and that took 3 condensers before I got it started. The quality of the supplies of condensers is frustratingly poor.

+1 I only use the DD for ignition/dizzy parts but I did have one of his red rotor arms fail through splitting? But he did replace it FOC.

Bruce.

[Mk2 Chopper]

15 hours ago, Andy Moltu said:

Do you carry a spare set of points with you?

No parts last forever...

Just quoted the bits I wanted to reply to above. No I don't carry spare points. I think that's the 'point' to me, having points means you check and change them regularly, not weeks or months but say annually at service time, so they shouldn't let you down (good quality spares not with standing), and encourages you to spend time on routine maintenence.  

The electronic are fit and forget until they let you down, meaning people carry spare - good old reliable points/condenser for that inevitable day. 

I wanted to say to the OP I'm using points and there is nothing wrong with using them. 

Gareth

[John L]

I agreed, there is nothing wrong with points and condenser, if you get the right  proper ones, much better stuff available now from DD including rotor arms, but they do go out of adjustment over time where the electric hall effect ones don't, and can be fitted to a worn distributor without any further need of reconditioning.

If you use points its important to set them with a dwell meter, so that the coil can work at its best, there's another item that's best to pay a bit more for.

John

[stallie]

A couple years ago now I bought a shiny gold one from Moss and kept the old Bosch (which was working just fine) as a spare. The shiny gold thing lasted about 4 hours of driving before it left me stranded.