[T3] got 'er going, now she's dead again

[The Canadian <cndt3@shaw.ca>]

63 Notch, single carb 1500

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. Yesterday I 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.  Today I was happily
driving and was 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.  Now I've got no spark
at all.  There is power to the coil and I've tried swapping in a new 6v coil
I just bought (it's a Hitachi, I am so embarrassed) but no spark to the
plugs.

Does this sound at all familiar to anyone out there?  I swear that my car is
possessed.  This is supposed to be simple, isn't that why we drive old VWS?

All suggestions are appreciated!
Andre





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