Hi Guys, I've got a problem with the front bank of cylinders on my twin distributor 208 GT4. The rear cylinders are fine, so I have been swapping components from the rear ignition system with the front one in the course of fault finding. Symptoms: All the cylinders on the front bank either fire or they don't. With a timing light on the coil lead I can see that they'll fire for perhaps 1/2 sec, then nothing for a second or so, then fire again for a brief period...never more than 1/2 sec which is >4 pulses. Background: My car has just come back from the workshop on Friday where it had a ignition and carb tune amongst other things, so new points, condensers and plugs. For all of Friday and Saturday it was running perfectly, and I mean better than ever I can remember. Then while on an outing on Sunday I noticed a misfire which came and went but got steadily worse. Investigations so far: I have cleaned up all contacts - the one at the coil was pretty bad. I've also removed all the spark plugs and cleaned them (they were OK anyway) and set gaps to 0.4mm as recommended in the manual. I've swapped Distributor caps including the coil lead, but the problem stays with the front bank. I've also rewired the coils so that they are effectively swapped, still the problem is with the front bank. I've checked that the rotor arm is turning when the engine is cranked. I've reassembled the bits where the condenser wire attaches to the bolt that goes through the distributor and connects to one end of the points. Also ensured that the insulating plastic was intact (see pic) both inside and outside the distrubutor. I've checked continuity of the R1/R2 leads. Conclusion: There's a problem with the front distributor. Questions: Any idea what's wrong? If I remove only the distributor, is my timing going to need resetting? If I remove the points, is my timing going to need resetting (I'm guessing so!) Any other advice? Image Unavailable, Please Login
Assuming the .4 gap isn't the problem, I'd say you've done a nice job isolating it to the distributor body. You can R & R a distributor without losing the timing in theory (mark the rotor and body positions) but why bother? Pull the thing, check it out or have a tech check it and reset the timing when you put it back. It's not too hard, although in a 208 with duplicate everything I imagine it's a bit more complicated than with my straight 4. If you can, swap distributors and confirm the problem switches with it. Ken
Thanks for the replies. The 0.4mm is the spark plug gap, they were wider than that so I've closed them a bit to get them down to 0.4mm. I haven't been able to check the points gap as it's too difficult to get at with the distributor in place. The points gap should be 0.35mm according to the manual. Is there a way to check this without removing the distributor?
Yea, I misread it, but .4 is small these days on plugs. I'd put a dwell meter on it. Someone may have left the fastening screw for the points loose or forgot to lube them. That could explain the intermittant timing light.
Thanks Rifledriver, that sounds promising...I haven't got a dwell meter, but purchasing one might be on the cards. My main problem is that it's going to cost me at least $200 to get the car to a workshop for various reasons, so I don't mind spending a bit of $ to get the problem sorted at home.
