Aaaarrrggghh - V8 Electrics - is this the dizzy amplifier??

Sorry, can't advise on your actual question, but do be aware that LR want best part of £100 for one, Halfords have them for £22.

I know! We broke one in West Wales on the August Bank Holiday weekend - only place we could get one on the Saturday was a main dealer - cost us £110 as we also had to get the adaptor cable to fit the three pin amplifier to our two pin loom (I think the three pins did the 3.9 Efi and upwards) it was that or we were stuck until the Tuesday :-((

Brookwells (local folks) stock them at around £20 too but, as they're shut on Sunday - I may well try Halfrauds - funnily enough I never think of them for parts!

Graeme

On or around Sat, 6 Dec 2003 18:14:01 -0000, "Graeme" enlightened us thusly:

bearing in mind your previous post, do a compression test.

and what are/were the valves and seats like?

In message , Graeme writes

Just out of curiosity, are all the hoses in place? I know of a similar case with an '89 EFi backfiring on gas that blew a small hose off the back of the block somewhere. Ba**ard to see with all the plenum chamber etc but ran like a bag of nails ... that was put down to dizzy until a new one didn't help ...

Where are you Graeme? Sounds like my old stomping ground.

David

Hi all answers are:

Austin: Valves and seats were all fine when we had the head off

David: We're in Torquay but pass Brookwells on the way to Dartmoor.

Andy G: thought of this one already - the backfire blew one of the breather hoses off and it sounds like that one is now leaking - new one ordered. There is a fancy blowback device fitted before the air meter and this causes the main intake hose to the plenum to crimp badly - I think there may also be a leak in that so I have a new one to fit (£24 genuine part only)

There is a small vacuum hose at the back of the plenum that is still connected and I checked it after the backfire but I will check that one to see if is cracked or anything (too dark now).

However it did run like a dog immediately before the backfire and has got progressively worse. I put a new amplifier on this morning - no difference. It starts, runs with an occasional miss and goes OK downhill - soon as you try an uphill and put any load on the engine it behaves as though two of the leads are crossed - hard to describe but it's like a man wading through mud - it feels like its trying to 'go' but is being held back.

I'll get the new inlet and breather hose on later in the week when they arrive and a new insulating cover for inside the dizzy (I cracked the one fitted - any chance that could be contributing??) Hopefully that will cure the vacuum leak that I can hear buy not identify the source (if not then I'll take the plenum back off and refit it in case there is a leak on the joint between it and the ram plate)

Graeme

Answering my own question:

It's not raining so why not get out with a torch and tinker:

Fitted new inlet hose to plenum, checked all the others - nada. Still lumpy.

Desperation - read Haynes BoL remembering that somebody on here had found a new rotor arm to be the cause of his troubles - read the bit about how to test rotor arm to see if earthing - got SWMBO out of warm house to crank engine whilst I hold the engine end of the coil HT lead over the rotor arm with the dizzy cap removed - eureka! No spark to the rotor until it passes the two cracks in the insulation/dust plate when you can distinctly see it earthing down, through the cracks and onto the distributor body.

I guess this would effectively remove two cylinders when under load so I have a V6 instead of a V8.

Guess I'll see once I get my hands on a new insulating cap.

Thanks again for all the advice

Graeme