Ignition problems, Spark

[pebbles]

Ok last 2 nights same thing has happened.

last night i drove my car around abit in the day, went to a mates at night, stayed there for a few hours and went to leave at about 2am
my car wouldn't start, so i first checked if i was getting spark (by getting the dizzy end of the main lead and holding it close to the body of the car while turning the car over, it was only sparking about once a second, when it should have been doing about 4 a second
i got a lift home and went back today at around midday with another coil and a few different leads, tried different lead and coil combinations and still the same thing,
then after doing this for a while got my mate to call the RAA,
while waiting for them to come, i figured id put the original coil back in, when i did this i checked the spark again and it seamed ok,
so i plugged it in and up it started, and was running fine, so we told the RAA not to come.
i then drove it around a fair bit today, 150ish k's actually.
and after work went to my mates house again, at about 11, and stayed there until just before 1, when i went to go home
and once again, the same frikn problem! so got another lift home and here i am now asking you knowledgable forum members if you know what is going on/

the car in question is a standard 4k ke70,

any help would be appreciated
-Cheers, Alex

[slide86]

does this have a ballast resistor?

the white looking stupid thing attatched to the coil, i had one of these play up when i had a 4k, changed it, all was sweet.

could be your points, not enough gap, or too much.....

the slow spark would indicate that the points might have something to do with it, they are what earths the coil out to produce the spark.

i would take the dizzy cap off and see if there is a gap where there should be, perhaps putting a new set of points in is the way to go, they are only cheap

[pebbles]

yes it has one of those resisters, and i was thinking about that it could be that, one thing I'm guna try that 2moro as i have a spare one i think off an ae71, hopefuly they would be the same

i do not know how to set the points, is there a thread on here somewhere someone can point me to so i can set it, I'm not familiar with the inside workings of the dizzy, just that when i turn it it makes my car faster, but if i turn it to much it makes it pingy

now that you mention it i think between the car not working and then working today/yetsurday(whatever) my dad took off the dizzy cap and then put it back on, but i thoght the dizzy would have nothing to do with it as I'm checking the spark comeing striaght from the coil?
but what your saying is they sort of rely on eachother?

i could be way off haha?

cheers for late night reply tho!

[slide86]

ok, basically the dizzy tells the coil when to make the spark via the points. so if the points arent operating correctly then the spark from the coil wont be good.

also in the dizzy cap there should be a small tip with a spring on it in the centre......make sure this is not falling out all over the place.

if you happen to be driving past the AJPS workshop tomorrow i can have a look at your ignition system and see if its working.

[pebbles]

ah k, ill try n suss it out 2moro, and nah i wont be down that way, its fair out of the way for me,
cheers for helping, hopefully i can work it out.

what would be the explanation of it not working at night? my dad said it could be condensation(he doesnt actually know much) but i thought that that could be plausable?
anyway, I'm off to bed,

anyone else had these problems?

[mello]

me... i have it after very cold nights when condensation occurs on the windows. Have yet to isolate the problem. I'm pretty much in the same boat... can't seem to track it down when the car is working. When its not working it isn't often maybe once in a full moon i have no clue where to begin looking at. Mines a 4age bigport, iv tried looking at the dizzy never looked at it in much detail but ill give it a check again on the spring thingymajigy. I also thought it was coil and balast but it wasn't that. Ill put it into an autoelectrician soon and hopefully he can get me answers.

[pebbles]

cool,

I'm going over there to try shit in a bit,
taking with me another balast resister and a bunch of tools,
can anyone tell me more about the dizzy and stuff i can do to make sure its working properly

[pebbles]

well i got it home
i got there, tryed to start out of hope, turned over dint start

checked spark
there was now no spark at all,
i was like wtf!!!

so then i remembered what slide86 said about the points being important as they earth the coil to produce the spark (this took me a while lol)
i then followed the wire that went from the negative side of the coil to the dizzy and thoguht that must be the earthing wire,
so i took the cap off and looked for the points,
at first i got it confused with sumthing else but then i found it

i then turned the motor over by hand with a 19mm socket and noticed that the points gap did not seam to be opening up literally at all
so i looked up on how to adjust the points and after not finding much i could understand i just had a crack at it with a flat head on the only screw i could see that could help, and it turns out that was the right one
i opened up the gap a little bit and checked spark
suddenly i had 4 sparks a second!
so i put the cap on plugged all leads in and started her up! it worked! but its running very very very dodgey
like pinging on idle i tried adjusting the timeing abit to fix this but just zapped myself accidently so i gave up and drove it home lol
but anyway now it needs tuneing

how can i properly set the points gap? timeing? what order should i do it in?
also will running rich lead to pinging, beacuse i think it is running a bit rich anyway so maybe i should lean it out abit before continueing?

[Jonny Rochester]

Points, 0.45mm or 0.018" or 52 degrees dwell.

Ignition timing between 5 and 12 degrees. Try 12 degrees if you have 98 octane.

[slide86]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (grape_moosha @ Apr 12 2008, 01:10 PM) </div>
good work dude, sometimes the only way of figuring something out is just diving in and giving it a go.

the way to adjust the correct gap is the get the points on the opening position. to do this, rotate the engine until you can see one of the lobes on the dizzy shaft push the points open to their max position.

then you need to loosen that flat head screw and adjust the gap to 0.45mm as jonny has said.

tighten the screw, refit the cap, then you can set the timing using a timing light.

then go for a drive!