Ok thanks for all the responses on this. I can understand a temperature
related failure but NOT how it recovers until the next time. Also after
breaking down at about 10 minutes it will then for an hour or more. But next
time
the car is used (2 weeks) fails after 10 minutes.
>From David says there is no obvious way to check the pickup is at fault
apart from during the 'few minutes of failure' ?
I can't remember what the tach does.
I don't suspect it's the coil both because it recovers, which I've not known
a coil do before and I expect a coil to produce a misfire rather than an
absolute failure and not to stage a recovery.
The last time I checked the price for a spare pick-up it was something like
#65 or double that. I did manage to find a 'pattern' pickup for less money
that I can try and fit but the DM pickup is integral to the base plate and
specific to the DM distributor.
So the list wisdom is that it may be the pickup or the coil?
I can't just swap out the coil because it's specific to the amplifier pack
which I'm loathe to fry. A combined coil and amplifier pack is about #200.
I'd be happy to hear of a cheap source for a pickup for the Lucas DM.
Weslake 1330
In a message dated 13/01/2008 20:48:16 GMT Standard Time,
dbl@chicagolandmgclub.com writes:
I have had a distributor pickup in my 1987 Plymouth Duster 2.2 fail exactly
in this manner. It is a temperature-related failure. Please realize that
when it dies completely (as it probably will eventually), the car is dead
unless you have a spare dizzy with you. I got lucky with mine. I was still
trying to figure out the cause (difficult to do when I had roughly 2 minutes
to diagnose it each time) when it did it twice in rush hour traffic in the
Chicago Loop section of the Kennedy Expressway (misnomer if ever there was).
Fortuantely, the first time was just as the shoulder was about to disappear
and the second was just when the shoulder re-appeared. Thank goodness! I did
make it home and the next morning, in my very own driveway, the thing
refused to start at all. Better to be lucky than good.
Anyhow, as far as diagnosis, I would say that, if the tach falls immediately
to 0, it is in the dizzy. If it keeps a reading while the engine is still
turning, it is most likely to be the coil.
Please note that I have made no Lucas jokes whatsoever. The effort is
killing me.
David Lieb
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