Distributor problem

My guess is you have a miss match on the cap and rotor. I would have a good look and see if the spark is arcing at the very edge of the pins in the cap rather than in their center.

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's

Foot Loose wrote:

So you think I might have been off a tooth on the gear when I installed the new distributor? I'm gona pull it out and reinstall to see if it will fix the problem. Thanks Mike.

Scott

Scott:

I once had a GM cap with a cracked carbon button that drove me nuts for months. The crack was hidden up past where the button sticks out and was not noticable by me and two other mechanics. One day I finally PULLED on the button instead of my usual test of pushing against the spring pressure and, lo and behold, half the button fell out into my hand. Is it possible that you have a cracked carbon button that reseats itself when you reseat the whole cap?

J Painter

No, I don't think so. That wouldn't make any difference, it only clocks the distributor position.

I am thinking the rotor is physically too short in height so it isn't hitting in the center of the distributor cap contacts.

If this is so, the contacts in the cap will be electric burned at the very bottoms of them.

Or I am thinking the rotor is too short on the arm causing it to arc out the center of the cap contacts. When you raise the cap, you could be knocking some crud loose or letting the rotor raise up a bit maybe allowing enough spark to fire her up.

Once it is running, a weak spark signal will still run, but cold it isn't enough to fire it up.

I would be opening the cap and having a close look at the arc patterns on the cap contacts.

I got an expensive Accel cap and rotor set and they arced out is a couple weeks. The rotor arm was physically too short so the big gap caused the contacts to just fry. It was also a bugger to cold or damp start.

Mike

Foot Loose wrote:

Just pulled the cap all the way off and can see that the rotor is arcing in the center of the leading edge of the plug wire contacts. I would think this is where they are suppose to hit, there is no marks on any other part of the contacts. The center of the rotor has a lot of carbon (black powder), I bent the center contact up a bit and will see if the problem goes away

Scott

The center button on the cap is in one piece, I pulled the entire coil off and removed the button and it looks good.

Scott