Bad idle / missing

Quote: "Today I checked my valve clearances, all at .06"

I hope you meant 0.006" !!

The slightly low compression should not make it idle so poorly.

They may have gapped the old plugs wide to compensate for something else.

My first suspicion would be a small vacuum leak.

Speedy Jim

"I have no use for a car which has more spark plugs than a cow has teats!" Henry Ford, when advised that Chevrolet was introducing a 6-cylinder engine.

Looks like leaking or interrupted HV cables to #2 and #4 cyl. Try

1) Run engine in darkness, you may see leaking discharges 2) Swap the cables to suspicios cylinders with those to good cyl. Swap on boh ends!!

Another possibility coud be the leaking distributor cover. When the engine is hot and you accelerate, the pressure in the cylinder increases, and the spark jumps in the cover. This happens only when the cover is warm. A similar problem I had with a motorcycle, when the engine died after warm-up (one cylinder).

Yep sorry, .006.

Had a fresh pair of eyes on it today, and they noticed that the rotor arm does not seem to fit to the distributor cap (Bosch)

When I got the car it had a short/dumpy wide cap on it that was obviously not right for the car. I bought a new one at the local auto store, but looking at it today it seems to tall (although it fits a lot better diameter wise). The rotor arm doesn't make contact with the carbon brush, and it seems to sit well short of where the 4 contact points are inside.

Although my car is a '68 the engine date is late 67, so I am wondering if this would account for the weirdness. I have had a look on the web, but it's difficult to tell the years caps apart.

Can anyone describe the changes? Is one of the 62mm 62.5mm caps dumpier than the other?

Thanks Spike

Thanks I am just looking again at the cap (see post above), wondering it is the wrong type.

I did look at the engine in the dark - there was a slight arc on the coil which I why I swapped it out. I did swap the leads and the plugs about without success.

Am hoping it is the cap!

Thanks again, for both your replies. Spike

The answer to a maiden's prayer:

Well, it does show the Bosch P/N's...

Jim

Bookmark!

I'm going to treat that as confirmation! I thought I'd got somewhere by looking up my distributor code (0231 137 009) on

thinking my cap certainly doesn't look that dumpy.

Your link confirms the cap # as 03001.

I think the one I have looks more like a # 03010.

I'll post back feedback, when I get one and have tried it.

Thanks again for your help. Spike

Back again!

I got the right cap and fitted it - it made the idle a little stronger but it still won't idle without assistance.

Guess I'm at the stange now where I replace the coil/points/condenser/leads for no good reason or start focussing on the fuel.

I suppose #2 and 4 could be more susceptable to inconsistent fuel supply on my bug but would have thought it would be more random than that.

Spike

Ok, am back - I'm posting this for posterities sake (and so you can all have a laugh).

After new; cap, points, leads. Tested; coil, plugs rotor arm, compression. Stripped carb and hours of tinkering........

I was sitting playing a game on the PC and idly looking at the spark plug gapper that was sitting on the desk (that I thought I'd lost) when I realised that the gap for .28" seemed a lot bigger than what I recalled setting on the plugs.

I went outside picked up the feeler gauge and compared. The old feeler gauge with part worn off numbers was in mm! (very small worn out decimal points) So plugs, points and valves have all been set about 3 to 4 times too small.

I reset the plugs and points today and it is running back to normal, I'll do the valves this week before it gets driven anywhere.

I laughed for about ten minutes when I realised what a simple little mistake I had made.

Reading back at my first post it was obvious what was wrong - guess I just couldn't see the wood for the trees.

Hopefully a tinker with the mixture will sort the slight loss of power I was getting prior to this saga beginning as it was way too rich.

Thanks to all those who assisted via the NG.

Cheers Spike

LOL!

Great story.

Speedy Jim