[T3] Tip of the week

[Steven Ayres <comwest@well.com>]

You're driving along, minding your own business, all's right with the 
world, when you suddenly notice the engine is missing erratically. Then 
you notice that it's getting steadily worse. It becomes clear that it 
does better with steady cruising, but acceleration is getting to be a 
disaster, and you start thinking about finding a place to park before 
something serious cuts loose. 

This happened to me last night while cruising through the center of 
Phoenix, which is not the best place to pull over on a party night. 
You should find that place and get out the tools, but don't even think 
about valves or plugs or timing or overheat until you've checked the 
dwell. 

After running myself around the bend in the middle of the night, goofing 
with adjustments for altitude, fuel mixture, even running the valves, I 
finally turned on my dwell meter and there it was. The points were 
drifting apart, possibly because the rotor shaft was dry, possibly 
because they were just not up to necessary quality. I had to stop 
several times over the hour and a half on the way home to readjust them. 

I thought I'd place this in the group consciousness since I replaced the 
points with a Pertronix unit today, and I don't expect this to come up 
again.

Thanks all for your suggestions on dying at idle. Wishing everyone a 
prosperous, safe and fun-filled '99 --

Steven Ayres, Prescott AZ
'66 343  

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