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[T3] Haunted Engine


63 Notch, single carb 1500

I've asked this question already and got some responses but still my car is
dead.  I'm basically asking the same question again hoping that somebody can
shed some light on this bizarre problem of mine.  Here goes....

A week or so ago I thought it was time to do the valve clearances and timing
again because the car had started to mysteriously die in the middle of a
nice smooth idle.  It would restart without problem and otherwise was
running fine.  After setting the clearances, points and timing the car
wouldn't start.  I wasn't overly surprised because this has happened to me
before.  It really seems as though whenever I do this the car won't start.
Days of trying to figure it out taught me  little trick - try a different
distributor.  Over the last couple of years I have been driving the car
daily and switching back and forth between two FI distributors.  For
whatever reason it seems that when the car won't run after a tune-up
changing the distributor and retiming it makes it work again.  OK so this
time changing the distributor didn't work.  I tried some other units I had
and couldn't make anything happen.  The following day I got the car to run
again using the original diz that I was running.  It had a real power lag in
a higher part of the RPM range but idled nicely. I then tried my other FI
dizzy and the car ran and accelerated well again.  The only problem was that
now it was super rough when idling.  I cleaned and relubed the advance
weights in the first diz then tried it again.  Finally my car was back to
normal.  It idled smoothly and accelerated well. Thinking all was well I was
happily driving and found myself waiting to turn left onto a side street.  A
break in traffic came so I made my move and my tires spun a bit on the wet
pavement.  The rear end jumped up and down a bit like it always does
whenever the tires spin (rarely, by the way.)  I got across fine but
instantly my car bogged down.  It would idle and start to accelerate but
quickly reached a point where giving it more gas made the rpms nose dive.
If I tried to get past this point it would buck and snort and jerk around
like a rodeo bull.  I drove home at something like 10 kph and barely made it
up the hill to my house.  I looked at the distributor and nothing looked out
of place. After awhile I tried the other distributor and got nothing.  With
suggestions from Jim and Keith I checked for spark with a timing light.
Hooked to the main wire from the coil to the distributor when a friend
cranks the engine I get a flash now and then.  It's very erratic and
unpredictable but definitely not flash-flash-flash like you would expect.
It's just once in a while.  I tried grounding that wire with the same
results.  There is 6V to the coil and I get a spark across the points when I
manually open and close them.  I've swapped in two different coils and the
car still won't run.  I've tried adding an extra ground wire from the
distributor body to the block but it didn't help.

I'm all out of ideas here.  Can anybody help?!?!?!

Thanks,
Andre



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