After a spring and early summer of uneventful TR4 driving, I pulled
out of my garage a couple of weeks ago, and my TR4 died at the end of
the driveway and wouldn't start. I finally managed to re-start it,
but it was obviously not running on all four cylinders. I pulled it
back into the garage and left it there for a few days.
A few days later, after replacing the distributor cap, the spark
plugs, the plug wires, the condenser, the points and the rotor, I was
confident enough to drive it roughly 120 miles to my wife's high
school reunion. I had some problems starting it after a stop for
lunch, but otherwise it rand great. The next morning, it wouldn't
start, and I ended up having to advance the distributor to get it to
start. I kept fiddling with the timing and had it running fairly well
for the first 40-50 miles, but then it started missing again, and kept
getting worse. I kept fiddling with the timing, but could never get
it sorted out. I managed to limp home, and replaced the plug wires
and distributor cap again. Checked the points gap, the valve
clearances, etc. Thought I had it licked, and tried to drive it to
work a few days ago. It still had a high rpm miss, that got worse and
worse. I barely made it home.
Today I replaced the coil and the entire distributor with a spare
(with different points and condenser). I double checked all
connections. I still cannot time the thing so that it doesn't miss.
I checked the plug wires with a timing light (before it quit
working!), and the miss was occurring on all four cylinders.
Does anyone have any ideas? Again, the thing was running great up
until a couple of weeks ago. I've always timed it by ear, and have
never had any problems getting it running great. This situation has
me baffled.
--
Kurtis
Russellville, Arkansas
1963 TR4 - CT19389L
1959 AH Bugeye - AN5L23250
www.geocities.com/tr4_1963
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