Front wheel bearings, and hot ignition coil too

Nor do I. Can you measure how hot the coil gets on the "hot car" and on the "cool car"after say 5 minutes and also the air temperature.

regards

David

Hi Tommy. It's the rainy season here and the lawn grows about 10" a week literally so I hope I don't get lawnmower problems! Hope you have joy with your lawn mower and it doesn't have strange problems like your coil.

One thing you could check is the current through the coil. With the engine off, ignition on and the contact breaker closed you should see around 4 amps. With the contact breaker open no current. If this is the case then this is correct. Leakage would not increase the coil current anway as the coil is being switched to ground by the CB.

With the engine running you should see around 2.5 amps in the coil circuit with your primary resistance of 3.1 ohms and the current should fall as the coil heats up and its resistance increases.

The only thing I can think of that could cause overheating if your dwell is correct is that as the coil heats up it shorts some turns and passes MORE current and then returns to normal when it is cool. To prove or disprove this, measure the coil current when it is hot with the engine running and its resistance when hot immediately after switching off the engine

Maybe this car is normal and the other one cool because of too low a current? How does it compare with the Marina?

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Ok, there's a major difference. Measured the cool coiled car now. Outside temperature: 20 degrees celsius, coil case 21 at start. Coil case 26 degrees after 15 minutes of idling. About 20 degrees cooler than the troublesome car in other words.

I must admit too, the cool coiled one idles a bit more evenly and smoother with a very steady idle. The hot coiled one has a short miss now and then at idle.

Regards, T:-)

That's it! I give up.. Tried another good 45 d distributor, checked dwell and the coil still gets hot. Still very hard to adjust for a decent idle. Finally made it idle somewhat smoothly. Ignition timing 10 degrees at idle. The coil still went as hot as earlier though.. I then tried the coil from the other car, it didn't get as hot as the other, however it now started missing at idle, irregular missing, almost stalling, then it would smooth out again only to start missing again after a short while. There's also some missing on the road. Looking at the plugs, it seems the mixture is to weak/ overheating. They are somewhat pink/ white.

If I make the mixture only slightly richer it will miss even worse/ stall.. There's something strange about this car, it doesn't behave like any other I have owned or worked on when it comes to adjusting timing and mixture.

This car makes me crazy some day:-) I'm thinking about getting rid of it. It would be a shame though:-(

Regards, T.

Thanks, Dave! I really appreciate your help! Well, I use the same HT leads, cap looks fine. I'll have a look at the rest later. Strangely it didn't misfire this way with the other coil. There is an irregular blow at idle, as well as missing when driving at low rpm. Possibly, this could be due to the carb/ needle, as I've adjusted there again. I use a strobe btw. Should the plug gap be 0.65 mm on all engines, with both types of distributors?

Regards, Tommy

Finally some joy up here:-) Fingers crossed it remains..

Well, the cooler coil seems to have some trouble too. I replaced ht leads, cap, plugs, condenser, points. It would still cut out and miss, and almost stall. I put the other coil back again, though getting hot it has never made the car cut or miss. Well, the missing and stalling disappeared. I replaced the coil spade terminals for circular ones, fastened by the nuts. Hope you understand what I mean:-) I even put rubber protectors over the terminals and insulated the lt leads well.

I then had a closer look at fuel again. I noticed the carb would still only run too lean, and I think the throttle again was too far open at idle. This carb, which is a recon unit, has been suspicious from day one, very hard to adjust and always running too lean.At least when removing the oil breather from the carb, the car would stall (no diaphragm breather on this one no, goes to pipe on carb. There's quite some suction at the carb's breather pipe in other words.
Also, I have a habit of "checking mixture" by puming the brake pedal. If idle rises smoothly, it's not too weak. By all means, I could be wrong on this one, but I've always found it to make sense. Anyway, with this carb this has been very hard to achieve. Idle would drop, or rise if mixture richened, but with blowing and misfire.

I have noticed the smell of oil fumes from the exhaust too, suggesting the carb would suck too much oil fumes. At least this is what I think. I could be wrong again, of course. Anyway, the engine has been rebuilt, and I suppose not even this b...y car could ruin a B- series in two months when it comes to piston rings etc...

I remembered Dave's advice about sticking to original carb/ oil breather etc. Well, the load of spares included with the car I just bought included a tidy looking, complete carb. It even had the tag on it, AUD 280, the correct one as far as I know. Well, I didn't even open it, just checked it's operation, and there was no excessive slack at the butterfly. Some, as always though. The piston fell nicely, and the jet would move freely. I reckoned this was taken out of a working car, so didn't even touch the adjustments.

Once installed, I also installed the oil breather valve. And yes, it started right away, and ran smoothly. The breather valve works as it should, idle rises instantly when opening the oil filler cap. By using the lifting pin, the mixture seems perfect. There's no more smell of oil fumes from the exhaust.

I won't touch this carb and its adjustments until I have too! On the road the car is now even better, the vibration at 70 kmh is no more. It's very smooth and performs extremely well in all conditions. It seems to run a bit cooler to, and the gearchange is far smoother. I believe mixture affects gearchange too. Again, I could be wrong:-)

When driving, the troubled coil now actually stays cooler. God knows why, but it does.

Well, fingers crossed it will stay this way:-) It sure looks better now.

Regards, Tommy.

Thanks, Chris! I sure hope to enjoy it for a while now:-) It looks promising:-)

Tommy:-)