Paul:
I've had the same problem with my Tiger in the past on two separate
occasions caused by a different problem each time.
The first time this happened, my Tiger did the exact same thing yours is
doing; running fine for a while, then starting to miss a little, then
missing a lot, and finally croaking on the side of the road. The problem
that time was a faulty ignition coil. It was evidently breaking down as it
would get hot. That was the easy one to fix...
The second time this happened, the symptoms were similar to yours, although
the car would just quit with no sputtering at all. You didn't mention
whether or not the car would start back up after sitting a while but, in
this case, that's what my car would do. After cooling for a few minutes, it
would fire right back up and run fine. I pulled my hair out for months
trying to trace down the problem and finally sought the advice of Tiger Tom.
He advised me to begin going through the ignition circuitry, connection by
connection, wire by wire. It was only then that I found it. Believe it or
not, the previous owner had installed some new wire terminals on some of the
wiring and, instead of crimping them on, he used a spot of solder. Now,
this would be fine assuming the solder holds which, in this case, it did
not. I had been fiddling with the car all afternoon one day and had the
hood up with the engine running for a moment. All of a sudden, I saw a
bright blue spark on the upper terminal for the ballast resistor, and the
car died immediately. I turned off the ignition and checked the wire where
the spark occurred and found that it would just spin inside the terminal.
Evidently, the wire was getting hot and deflecting just enough to pick
itself up from the terminal, thereby interrupting the ignition circuit. I
put a new terminal on and crimped it like it should be and, to date, have
not had that trouble again.
Tiger Tom was right; problems like this are usually caused by very simple
things. It's up to us to find them and, consequently, I urge you to check
all of your connections in the ignition circuit. Once you find the problem,
you'll wonder why it took so long.
Good luck,
Andy Walker
B382001600
By the way...I kept that wire terminal with small bit of wire and the solder
ball on the end of it just as a reminder of how something silly like that
can kill your car.
----- Original Message -----
From: "PAUL R SHEAHAN" <sunbeamtiger@prodigy.net>
To: <tigers@autox.team.net>
Sent: Saturday, May 05, 2001 7:39 AM
Subject: Advice
> To the mechanical minds on the list,
> I need some mechanical advice. After my car has been running for
about
> twenty minutes, it develops a skip in the engine. The longer it runs the
> worse it gets to the point that the engine stalls. I have replaced the
fuel
> pump and the fuel filter. It is still missing a beat somewhere.
> My next thought would be to check the points, rotar, condensor, and
the
> distributor cap.
> Any additional advice would be appreciated.
>
> Paul
> Paul R. Sheahan
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