I hope this isn't a repeat message. I think I did something wrong
on my first attempt. Apologies if you get it twice.
From what I can tell by past posts on this topic, I may be one of
the few out there running my 1980 Spit with the original Lucas
electronic ignition. But that era may be coming to a close. The
engine normally starts very easily, even in the cold. But several
days ago it almost didn't catch up before the battery went dead.
At the end of the day when I tried to start it to go home, it took
a few tries but then did fine. I suspected the auto choke and
checked it out a couple of days later, but everything seemed fine.
Yesterday I looked for a spark from a spark plug wire and from the
coil wire but I couldn't get one. I checked all the wires for
continuity and swapped out the coil (from the TR6), but still no
spark. There is a condensor mounted on the coil, and I swapped that
out too. No luck. I have taken the electronic parts out of the
distributor and will clean them and reset the air gap, but I don't
hold out much hope. So I have a couple of questions for those of
you in the know.
1) Is the Crane XR700 (think that's it) as easy to install and as
reliable as the VB catalog makes it sound, or is there a better
route?
2) This one is embarrassing. I was checking out the VB catalog for
the condensor mounted on the coil bracket and there wasn't one.
Instead, the catalog showed the coil ballast resistor. I have
thought for all these years (about 13 now) that the ballast
resistor was a wire buried somewhere in the harness since I
couldn't see it (the way I can on the TR6). So now I'm thinking
the DPO may have put that condensor in its place and that I have
been running a 6 volt coil on 12 volts all this time. Can
someone tell me what the coil mount is supposed to look like? Is
there supposed to be a ballast resistor mounted on it?
As always, thanks for your help.
Tim
--
Tim Gaines
Clinton, SC
1980 Spitfire
1974 TR6
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