Thank you daviekj for that excellent information. Did you actually remove the R2 points or disconnect the electrical connection ? Why did you decide to do this,were you having problems ? Thank you once again Cliff Donnon Australia
Cliff, R2 points can be disabled simply by disconnecting the cable to the throttle switch (photo below). Easy to do and easy to revert. There is no need to remove or touch either points. This cable can be disconnected while running at idle to test the effect. The revs will increase by ~500 to 1000rpm as the 6deg retarded ignition will be disabled. If you run it that way on the road, simply adjust the carburettor idle screw to bring the revs down. Put some insulation tape over the female connector to prevent it grounding to eg. the carburettor body or cam cover. If it does ground the 6deg retard will occur again at idle and engine could stall. You may find it slightly harder to start with R2 disconnected. The wiring cartoon below is not completely correct for the original Dinoplex set up (this is for an after market Super 4 ignition) however, the wiring to R1 and R2 should be as per original. If you mentally follow the distributor cam lobe in the cartoon as it rotates you should be able to see how R2 acts when the throttle switch is closed at idle. R1 also opens and closes but it lags the action of R2 so if R2 connected, R2 dictates. I ran with R1 and R2 as per original for several years without any major problems. I have subsequently replaced the R1 R2 set up with Adrian's Bosch/Lumenition set up as I was after a better starting spark and removal of the hassle of having to check and adjust the points every service. With this set up there are no points and similarly no R2 6deg retardation. The conversion is more involved and covered in this thread: http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=276251&highlight=bosch+ignition+module&page=3 There are quite a few alternative conversions as per Adrian's www.dinoplex.org web site and the subject matter of other threads on dino fchat. If you have R1 and R2 set up correctly then you may not have a need to change anything. Kevin Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
After waiting for parts to Australia, rebuilt distributor, new bearings, greased & set springs as best I could[ bit of guess work] new top carb. gaskets, reset floats & blew out jets.Disconnected the R2 electrical connection at the carb.Cleaned & reset the spark plugs & fired her up. Started ok but seemed to slow down on idle & eventually stall. Loosened the distributor nuts & turned it by hand until I got the fastest idle speed & tightened the nuts. Using a timing light on no. 3 plug it shows 10 deg btc, is this acceptable? It still wants to stall after idling a long time [better than before] any ideas why? When I connect the sensor of the timing gun to no. 3 plug lead where are the positive & negative leads connected in the engine compartment ? Seems everything was a little bit out. Thank you Cliff Donnon Australia
10 degrees are good as idle advance, nothing to worry about. When you experience stalling after idling for a long time, when does this happen, after a minute, 10 minutes? Can you measure the idle advance using a strobe gun when the engine starts stalling, and also the cars main voltage and let us know the results? You can connect the timing light negative terminal to the chassis/engine and the positive terminal to the thick wire/terminal im the alternator fuse box mounted on the firewall.
Cliff, keep feeding us all as much information as you can. Could be alternator / battery. What does the ampere dial on the dash do when it runs and then dies? Kevin
Cliff, just a thought. have you checked the fuel filter. do you know if enough fuel getting to the carbs? Has the choke on the carbs been worked on recently and possibly put back wrong? Previously you had commented that one or more of the cylinders was not firing. Is that still the case? Kevin
On the subject of fuel have you checked that the carburettor base spacers do not have a hairline crack in them. I recently went through hell with another car and changed EVERYTHING only to find out that my problem was a thin crack causing a fueling problem. I was convinced the problem was distributor advance and after buying a whole new ignition system it still was not solved. A $9 carb spacer later and the car runs perfect.
Nuvolari, when in doubt use a bit of starter spray/brake cleaner when the engine starts to stall/run rough to see if its an ignition or fuel problem.
Back to basics. To fire you need: compression spark fuel check compression, it sounds like you haven't. clay
Sounds like ignition is solved. Check fuel feed - disconnect the return hose AFTER the carbs, have the wife (mistress) to turn on ignition (pump running), and the returnline should pee like we could in the old days... No dripping/squirting allowed ! Second: check your carbs - balancing is easy with a tool like this http://www.btowstore.com/epages/Store3_Shop2367.sf?ObjectPath=/Shops/Store3.Shop2367/Products/AC000124 (dont know if im allowed to link ???) But first you may have to do an ultrasoundcleaning to get rid of "invisible" material in the carbs - will be visible though after cleaning ! Then tune your carbs each at a time to get a smooth running. If this doesn´t solve the problem, you might have to compression/leakdowntest your engine. Best Erik
Where do I start, pulled the distributor, replaced the bearings & lightly ground the casing smooth & polished with 800 wet & dry. Reshaped the pins slightly flatter & smoothed the ends.Next the springs,after great deliberation, decided my guess was as good as another & went by visual inspection.The 2 springs furthest away from the pivot points were positioned to just make contact with the drum when it is stationary, the second set to touch the drum at approx. three quarters of the advance. Next the 2 sets of points, decided to use both sets so using a protractor I phased them to approx. 5 deg. apart. All seemed ok cleaned the rotor button & the dist. cap & replaced the unit. Then the carbs, pulled the tops removed the jets to clean & floats to reset. Replaced the tops with new gaskets & float needles & set the mixture screws to 1.5 turns out & bleed screws to 1 turn out. Decided not to use the micro switch so didnt connect it up. Turned the key & it fired right up although a little rough. Used a synchrometer for the air flow & adjusted the mixture by ear , fine tuned with the bleed screws & went for a test drive, runs very smoothly, but by reading plugs is a little rich on the rear bank, which is an easy fix. Idles at 1000 revs & starts easily hot or cold, found the engine runs better at 10 deg. btdc. Sorry for the hammer & chisel approach to this, but used to working with old American V8s Many hours of reading went into this project & I want to thank the forum again Cliff Donnon Australia Happy ballerina owner
Cliff, I am glad it all worked out, but I am not sure what the issue actually was, do you suspect any one problem? When you took the carbs apart were any of the float levels out before you re-set them? Did the oil into the distributor cap happen again? All good info in case similar problems occur for others. I would recommend that you have the dynamic ignition advance checked. Your static timing sounds about right. If you have a good strobe (I use the snapon one which is ideal) you could run though a few rpms and plot the advance. Make sure the front lid is open and the engine does not over heat, particularly at the higher revs, and your Aussie heats. The reason I say this is that from experience, the advance is quite sensitive to the spring rates and packing washers. When i got it right (as per workshop manual) the car certainly pulled smoothly and felt right. You may be lucky and got it first time. Kevin
Over a period of time the car had been getting slower & slower, harder to start until it finally stopped. I did not realise this as I do not drive it hard & mainly in the city area with restricted speed limits.Something needed to be done pronto. List of problems, One carb. float set way too high. Three spark plugs very black & sooty. Distributor springs & pins all over the place. Ignition timing set incorrectly. Points gaps too wide. Distributor , cap & points very oily on the inside. So fixed these problems & now back in Dino land. The oil problem in the distibutor seems to have stopped [could be sloppy workmanship] The reason I didnt check these before is it had just had an engine refurbish before I purchased it. I know..... IT PAYS TO CHECK ! I was going to say its a wonder it ran at all....but it didnt. Cliff Donnon Australia
Cliff, thanks for the explanations and sharing this symptoms and fixes. Sounds like a set of cumulative problems, but i suspect that the carb float was a significant problem. When you say it was set high, was it set too low in the chamber when correct way up i.e. carb starved of fuel or too high in the chamber (i.e. potentially flooding the carb? Kevin
Hi Kevin, the centre carb. was at fault, with the top held vertically the measurement from base to float bottom was 51.5 mm. With the top held horizontally the measurement was 56mm not in the recommended range of 8-8.5mm.Presumably this would have made the mixture a little rich at running speed. Cliff Donnon Australia
