Well, never mind then. LOL
It's idling about 900 right now. I read 36 degrees dwell on the rear and about 31 on the front. I'm thinking I can live with that. I set it solely using the degree wheel, though I did check afterwards with the feeler gauge. And, of course, now with the analyzer.
Thanks, Peter! Just saw your post. I will stop by soon. I'll call to see what's convenient. Had several great runs in the car. Then, set the timing at 5000 rpm. Seemed to go back to mark at idle, too, but probably should have checked again after tightening down the distributors. Oops. Big problem was the plugs seemed to have gotten fouled in the process. Everything seemed just dandy that evening. But, just when I thought I had it all figured out it was running like crap again the next time I cranked it. So, now another evening of cleaning up and re-gapping plugs. Then, setting timing at idle. Had another good run this evening. Now I'm back where I was last Thursday . Seamus
I was initially running BP6ES, but at the suggestions of others, I dropped to a BP5ES. Were running different fuel today than what the car burned 30 years ago. The 5 is a bit hotter plug and should resist fouling by burning off the carbon. Just keep an eye on them that they are not overheating or that your not running lean. Really bad awful things could happen if its lean. And while were on that subject, what jets are in the carbs? If you have the ignition nailed down, you may want to look at the carbs now and make sure they are equally jetted, sycronised, and adjust your idle mixture.
This is great advice!! The trap I've fallen into is I start fixing something, usually electrical, and I *know* the problem can't be where I already was, or I *know* what the symptoms suggest. I keep looking in the wrong place because of my preconceived notions. This has led to a lot of useless work and wasted time. Now when I'm scratching my head, I pretend this isn't my car. Someone else gave me this car to fix. So I start at the battery and work through everything step by step, and more often than not the problem was simple and I was overlooking it. For example, I used to get a complete momentary electrical failure at startup occasionally but the car would never die when running. So "obviously" it was the solenoid or in the keyswitch right? Couldn't be the - battery cable because it looked new. Well, after being towed home because I was staranded in a parking lot, I started at the battery with the meter and guess what? Bad - cable. Ken
When I was 17 I scrounged myself a nice little MGB/GT. The car was great, never gave me any real trouble in the few years I owned it, but it just never liked to start and the batteries were always going dead. New batteries didnt help, and neither did the voltage regulator or the generator. I put up with that for almost the entire time I owned it. But the clutch was going bad and the time came to pull the motor, and in I went to have at it. The last thing I removed before lifting the engine was the starter battery cable, and here I found the nut backed off almost to the end, and the cable end and starter stud all burned and arced. The stupid car would turn over and run, but it just wouldnt ever charge. Thats why even on cars that turn over okay, I always check that connection. There is so much current draw during starting that its easy for the connection to pass power, while the charge going back just cant go through.
The advice about being systematic, while hard for me, really is the best. I got another dose of it yesterday courtesy of Lolaman. I don't know how the carbs are jetted. That's on my "to do" list but I am approaching the car one thing at a time. Right now it was belts & seals. I didn't want to mess with the ignition but some parts were so bad I *had* to do it. Car ran good before. I messed with ignition. Before it had BP7ES plugs. They look to me like car is on the rich side. Gap on most of them is 0.30". Old front plug wires are different than rear! (Too hard to reach? . Resistance on old wires dead on 1,000 ohms front and about 1300 rear. Again, in this paragraph I'm talking about what *was* in the car before I started messing with it. I bought BP7ES again just cause that's what I found in there and I gapped them to 0.25" because of something I read here. I bought Accel wires (4040R) after reading some post here. But, I just checked resistance measured wire to cap (without extender) and it is 13,000 ohms! Wrong wires? I have run this setup on a couple 30-minute runs that seemed pretty good. But, just when I thought I had the timing right I experienced fouling. Right now I need to set the timing again but I don't want to start that until I get the plugs and wires straightened out. Seamus
