Club 80-90 Forums

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Good metalwork there Roger, and good to see your progress.
Congratulations to your son (and yourselves), that's great news.

Slightly worse news is my bleedin mini won’t start!!! Died on my wife yesterday just up the road. Just pootered to a halt, and now spins on the starter but no other sign of life. And it was all going so well!! Read a couple of idiots troubleshooting guides, and will have a look at it tomorrow evening (got someone coming to look at it on Sunday after I had it on gumtree!!). Too late tonight for me to annoy the neighbours by trying to start it! Oh for living in the middle of nowhere...

Just read your posting on BBB's thread. Diagnostic process is the same whatever the car; you need air, fuel and a spark at the right time. Air is generally easy, next stage is see if you have a spark at the plugs, if there is then it's fuel

Aye, I guess I’m just kicking myself that I held out for a better offer - I could have got shot of it a week ago and let the buyer discover the issue. Not very generous of me I know! Between here, mini forums and Haynes I hope to get there. In Thurso I had a very helpful old school garage, I miss it! Yet to find it’s equivalent here...

Oh bugger!! at least mini's are old school engines and you'll be able to diagnose it.

Good luck, If we were closer I'd come and join in the head scratching and beard stroking.

Aye, fingers crossed. I’m sure I’ll get there, thanks for the remote support!

King lead sparks when disconnected from centre of distributor and held near block when engine turned over. Spark plug leads do not.

Internal of distributor cap


Internal of distributor



Fuel squirts out of fuel pipe when engine turned over.

I think the distributor contacts look eroded, and that could be the cause? What say you?

Oh, and the points seem to open and close when I turn the engine by hand.

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Check the points gap, clean the internal contacts for the dizzy & the points, make sure the feed to the points isn't going to earth. Can you rock the car back / forwards in gear / move engine by hand to see if there is a spark across the points ?

What's that on top of the rotor arm, grease ? It shouldn't be there

I thought they looked eroded... shouldn’t they be rounded pins?

Can’t turn the engine in gear by rocking the car, it’s auto... I can just squeeze a big adj spanner on the end of the crankshaft tho, but turning it is slow. Should I try with the ignition on?


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I should be able to check the feed to...


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Those contacts look like they’ve rotated in the cap. They should be a nice smooth curve that matches the sweep of the arm shouldn’t they? Or is it a perculiarity of the cap type? That would explain the erosion on the arm and contacts as it shouldn’t arc at all, they idea being that the arm and contact are fully touching when the spark is created thereby preventing arcing

Kind of what I was thinking, I’ll see if the local factors have a cap and rotor, not hopeful though.

Contacts in Bosch dizzy caps present a flat face to the rotating rotor arm, they do look rotated, but can't see why they would be. I've never had a British car so no experience of Lucas stuff, no imperial tools either.

Ignition on, rotate the engine and you are looking for a spark across the points on the low tension circuit. It won't be big and it won't be loud. If there's a spark the LT side up to that point is fine and I would then replace the condenser. No spark, make sure that you are getting 12v to the connector for the points and that the voltage is not going to earth when the points are open.

To save yourself time, get a cap, rotor arm, set of points and condenser. Parts supply for old minis should be pretty decent. Thanks for making me remember ignition diagnostics from over 30 years ago, it's a bit like doing my O levels again. Not sure I'd pass though

Before that though, clean the grease off the rotor arm and see it that fixes the problem.