First, thanks to all who responded to my postings on the dim headlight and my
timing issue. I see that it generated a lot of chat! An update: The
headlight is now fully bright, and the answer apparently was in the fuse... not
blown, but by just moving it a bit, I believe this lead to the light working.
However, it dims still on high beam setting. I will review the previous posts
as I continue my investigation, though I did open the relay and clean it some.
I also noticed that on the headlight that works normally, when on low beams,
one power wire is energized, the other is not. When you switch on the high
beams, they swap. On the "dimming" headlight, both power wires have voltage at
low beam, and one does not when I hit the high beams... go figure (damn
wiring... grumble grumble). I also noted that the properly working fuse is
much hotter to the touch than the other. Regarding the timing on my 2 liter, I
noticed that the plate that secures the distributor to the base had some play
in it... I could wiggle the dizzy back and forth more than I could on the 1600,
so I carefully tightened up the bolt that holds the plate to the dizzy, and
made sure I bolted the dizzy down tight. This (or some other random thing)
appears to have helped my timing jump a lot... it still shakes some but not
with the wide timing swings I was seeing yesterday. However, I would still
love to hear of alternative timing systems or gain additional insight into what
might be causing the jump (is it just a 30 year old car?). I did not mention
earlier that this is an electronic "Gary Boone" style distributor that I and
another friend did years ago. As far as I can tell, it is still tight and in
good shape. I would like to talk to Gary however, so if you are out there Gary
or if someone has his email, please let me know. Look forward to seeing some
of you at Blue Lake on Sunday!
Greg Burrows
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