Club 80-90 Forums

Hi, guys sorry to bother you all again, but today i decided to change the plugs and leads on my van.

I channged the plugs no probs, changed the leads and tried to start her up.

No luck. Wasn't firing at all, so i presumed i had knocked a connection off the coil or something obvious.

Not that either. So i took the dizzy cap off and decided to change the rotor arm while i was there.

I put the new one on and maybe it had turned or something, cos when i put it all back together it just went bang and backfired.

Now i have never messed with dizzys before and dont really know what i am doing, but in the haynes it says point the rotor arm at the notch in the dizzy body when cylinder 1 is at tdc.

I understand that bit but i cant see a notch as such, what i can see though is this.

is that the notch?? and if so which bit of the rotor is supposed to point at it. Cos the contact arm is quite a bit bigger than the notch, so should it sit in the middle of the arm?

Any ideas/help would be greatly appreciated, or even better if someone lives close by..............!!

cheers guys

Long time since I touched one of them petrol things but-

if you look inside the rotor arm there is a protrusion that engages with the notch that you can see in the centre of your picture.
So long as you haven't altered the timing by moving the distributor at all that should be where the problem is.

Did you set the plugs to the correct gap?

One of the petrol aficionados will doubtlessly come in with more help if you need it.

The rotor arm will only go on in one position. It sounds like you have the leads on the wrong way round. The notch is TDC on no1 cylinder, but that doesnt really matter. Just get the leads on the right way round.


Its also posible that the dizzy cap is 180 degs out. It can only really fir properly on one way but i have manged to get it 180 degs out and still it felt right so I popped the clips back but clearly it wasnt.

And allways take off one lead (spark) at a time then you wont forget which way round they went

Albert

If you did not move the dizzy it won't be that.

It is almost certain you got the leads order muddled up.

E D I T = Albert beat me to it

Well, mr haynes has a lot to answer for!!

When i changed the leads i did them one at a time as you do.

Then when i had finished, i thought i would check them with the haynes to be sure.

It seemed that i had 3+4 the wrong way round so i swapped them. Puzzled as to how i had done it in the first place.

Thats when it wouldnt start...... the bloody manual is wrong!!

Ah well, you learn form these things, runs sweet as a nut again now.

Cheers a lot guys, this forum is a godsend!! Much love