I got up early Saturday morning anticipating a long session in the
garage with the snake, but the stumbling problem was resolved rather
quickly. Actually I had started the night before with the
direct-jumper-between-battery-ground-and-distributor-body test, but that
involve virtually no effort so doesn't count. The jumper didn't help,
anyway.
Following a "start simple" strategy I bought a set of points and a
condenser at a local parts store and installed them first thing. Not
expecting much, I started up the car and took off for a few circuits of
the 'hood. 10 minutes passed without a stumble. As time passed I got
braver and drove in ever widening circles. Not one problem in half an
hour.
One thing I noticed about the replacement parts was that they were of
much better quality than the ones they replaced. In spite of the
relative chintziness of the points, I strongly suspect that the
condenser was the problem for two reasons. First off, the old condenser
mount consisted of a piece of stamped sheet metal rolled into
semi-circle to retain the condenser body. Since the metal was very soft
it didn't have enough springiness for this purpose. Secondly, this
condenser has caused problems in the past.
With 20-20 hindsight I realize I had a very good clue to the cause of
the problem all along. Last year the car had had another rough running
problem, but that time the roughness had been continuous and fairly easy
to track down to the condenser slipping in its bracket. At the same
time I had also noticed that the tachometer was acting flaky. After
roughing up the surface of the condenser with sandpaper and squeezing
the bracket tighter, the running problem cleared up and the tach stopped
its bouncing around. Naturally I assumed that the two problems were
related at the time. But soon afterwards the tach resumed its flakiness
while the engine continued to run okay. Based on this, I figured maybe
the two weren't related after all.
When I started noticing the new problem, I did keep an eye on the tach
to see if it seemed any worse than usual when the engine was acting up.
Unfortunately the problem didn't happen often or predictably enough for
me to come to any conclusion. However, since replacing the condenser
the running problem has cleared up (so far) and the tach has been solid
as a rock. Probably the fact that running a jumper directly from the
hot side of the battery to the BAT terminal of the coil seemed to
improve things slightly was another clue.
Anyway, the new condenser is soldered to its mounting so that source of
ground woes should be cured. While I was at it I made sure that all of
the other distributor connections were solid too. In addition, I
removed the battery ground strap and wire brushed every connection
(including where it attached to the frame) before re-installing it.
With this problem out of the way I had time to work on a few others. I
confirmed that the solid state alternator controller I bought as a
replacement for the old mechanical box is the reason my ignition warning
light no longer comes on. Since I have an ammeter this isn't a serious
problem but it is annoying. Hmm, I bought this controller from the same
parts place I bought the crappy condenser and points from. Maybe
there's a lesson here somewhere.
Another long postponed job tackled was the the steering rack-and-pinion
gaiters clamps. Oil has been seeping past these clamps every since I
installed new gaiters last summer. A while back I tried "shimming" the
clamps with strips of neoprene, but this only caused the gaiters to
wrinkle where the rubber shim ends meet. Since this didn't seem to be
an improvement, I decided to try something different. Auto Parts Club
sells 1/4" stainless steel gaiter straps so I bought a package of them
to try out. These straps tighten differently from the original clamps
in that they don't have screws. Instead the strap ends slip through
loops and are curled under with a special included tool until the straps
are cinched tight; the ends are then bent over and held in place by
little ears on the loops. I did the rack side but decided to hold off
on the other side. As hard as I tried, I couldn't get the straps very
tight. There just wasn't enough room to get a socket and ratchet on the
tightening tool at the "right" angle, plus I couldn't keep the straps
from sliding around as I was tightening. I'll wait and see if this side
is tight enough. Also it appears that some of the oil has been leaking
from the gear box itself. This rack is essentially the same as on an
MGB and has two access plates. One is on the top and the other is on
the front. Each plate is held by two bolts. The front plate appears to
be the leaker. I tightened all the bolts some, but I was reluctant to
tighten them too much. I'll be keeping a close watch. It might be
necessary to replace the plate seals.
If the new straps don't work out I may make new clamps from the 1/4"
strips I had left over. The SS straps are very long and the excess has
to be cut off. I'll use the old clamps as patterns, except I'll make
the new ones smaller so they could be tightened more.
I had hoped to drive the car to work at least once this week, but if the
rain doesn't let up, that's out. The ole snake is strictly a fair
weather car. Of course the real question is: can this sucker make it
all the way to Carmel and back??
Roland
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