Gidday from Ottawa, Listers! I'd like to share with you all my latest
experience with Lucas quality, and ask for a bit of advice from any of you who
have BTDT:
Although it's fairly late in the season, I decided to take a look at my TR3A's
ignition system, as it has been a bit of a difficult starter from cold. Once
warm, it'll start right up; it runs fine, goes like stink, etc., but from cold
- tough (I know the choke needs proper setting & all that, which I'll get to in
the spring, but snow will be here any day now). I finally took a look inside
the distributor cap, and found the points, rotor and dist cap fairly 'used',
shall we say. No problem - I dipped into my supply of bits and replaced as
required. Now I get to my actual problem:
My LUCAS distributor cap for the 3A is defective, fresh out of its orange
package! For the non-sidescreen of you, the distributor wires for these caps
are connected by little setscrews that, when tightened, pierce the wire's
covering to make contact and carry the spark. In mine, I think the setscrews
for the taller pair of leads (i.e. plugs 1 &2) were put in by an air tool or
something, and over-torqued. Their access is narrow so I had to use a large
watchmaker's screwdriver, but was barely able to get them to loosen. Once I was
able to turn the screw, the screw is apparently stripped - I can't back the
setscrew off to install the wire. Has anyone else noticed this with a
brand-new, out-of-the-package LUCAS cap? Any ideas on how to loosen the screws?
I was thinking I could get a friend to apply downward pressure on the sharpened
(connection to plug wire) end to 'encourage' the screw to recede as I turn the
screw. Anyone BTDT? Cheers, JD (not a big LUCAS fan)
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