As there is almost nothing to go wrong with them, apart from arcing and
> shorting, what could cause them to arc or short out? Or are they now just
> Asian rubbish - as opposed to British Lucas rubbish :-)
They seem to be mostly rubbish, I've heard of lots of people having problems with them.
Rarebits have some that should be a lot better:
My old man went through two on his Moggie Minor. The problem with his was that the white metal that was supposed to keep it a tight fit on the shaft, didn't.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Jim Warren" saying something like:
Welcome to the world of the Kill Switch Backfire. You should try it in tunnels.
You can draw lots of pencil lines on it reputedly and it will not work.
True. Assuming you have the "right sort of pencil" with a high graphite content, it will track. Same thing applies to spark plugs - a pencil line drawn down the side will cause a misfire which will confuse most mechanics. A trick which was allegedly used by dubious motor traders some years ago to drive down the price of whatever they were trying to buy, particularly at auctions.
GMacK
I once came across a repeated failure of dizzy cap and occasionally rotor arm as well. Turned out to be engine mounts: allowed engine to rock under load so cap touched bodywork, pushing it over against the tension of the holding springs,with spinning rotor arm inside leading to bits flying all over the place. took ages to work that one out. I think it was a BMW 1600
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