Skizzer’s Vauxhall 2300S: cool again

[Skizzer]

The Vauxhall - or possibly my own ignorance - continues to fight me every step of the way. Weary of it doing 5 MPC (miles per condenser), I ordered a Powerspark coil and electronic ignition kit from SimonBBC.

 

Firstly, the coil fitted happily - it’s much heavier than the Intermotor one, being proper and not made of prawn crackers. Starting is better but the running is still not good.

 

So on to the distributor. Cap off, rotor arm off, electric bits out... rotor and bob weights going absolutely nowhere. The book of lies says they should lift out, but they don’t.

 

 

Those two phillips screws by the vacuum doobriefurkin don’t help, by the way.

 

 

Any Saab 900, Dolomite 1850, Lancia Fulvia or Bedford CF fans out there with suggestions on how to fillet a Delco D300 in situ? I'm keen to avoid taking the whole dizzy out and adding duff timing to the list of things that prevent this car from running.

[Sigmund Fraud]

I suggest you remove the whole distributor from the car and take it apart on the bench.

 

Otherwise, I can guarantee that some miniscule bit will snap or ping off, never to be seen again. Said miniscule bit will then prove to be both essential for the distributor's function and no longer available for sale.

 

Also, don't assume that the last person who timed the distributor did it correctly...

[Asimo]

I think you have been Haynes'd! A quick google suggests that the distributor will have to come out and the drive gear be removed before the shaft can be removed.

 

 

[Skizzer]

BOLLOCKS. I feared as much.

[Squire_Dawson]

Are the bob weights actually seized? They look clean in the pictures. A drop of light oil on the pivots does good though. The vacuum advance can be tested by disconnecting the pipe at the carburettor/manifold end and sucking - hopefully you'll see the distributor baseplate move. Is it definitely the right distributor for the car? Though they are the same model for various cars the weights differ widely to give advance curves to suit the particular engine. There should be a serial number stamped somewhere to check.

[Skizzer]

The bob weights are fine, in fact the whole distributor works ok. I’m just fed up of points and condenser ignition with crappy modern componentry that keeps failing.

 

I could try and source a decent quality condenser from Distributor Doctor or somewhere I suppose, now I've got a decent coil, and leave the points alone.

[mercrocker]

Can you not just fit the Powersparky kit thing and assume the bob weights and rest of the dizzy are fine?   It would at least eliminate one thing or the other.   Fitting one of these to my Minor when I suspected the actual dizzy was knackered proved that it wasn't quite....Still runs well now after many years.

[Skizzer]

The bob weights need to come out to fit the Powerspark thing. The actuator ring (or whatever it’s called) goes over the distributor shaft in their place. Sorry, my post probably didn’t make that clear.

[Skizzer]

I’ve been tinkering with this on and off but haven’t bothered with an update until now due to a distinct lack of actual progress.

 

I took the dizzy out and dismantled it on the bench. The shaft has been peened over at the top, and while I could drill it off I’d never get it back on again:

 

 

So after some head scratching I gave up on the electronic ignition idea, cleaned everything up, re-gapped the points and put it all back together again.

 

I reinstalled the distributor around the middle of its adjustment range and tried to start the car, to see if it would run enough to get a timing light on it. Nada.

 

Loosened the dizzy again and turned it a few random degrees to the left, tried the starter again...

 

...and fuck me, it fired first time and immediately settled to a smooth fast idle, which dropped but stayed lovely and even when I put the choke in. Tightened everything up and went for a drive round.

 

It’s now running super-sweetly, which it last did when I collected it from AngryDicky. It’s actually a really nice drive, with lots of torque.

 

Here it is with the bonnet properly closed for the first time in about a year;

 

 

It’s basically now got a whole new ignition system so hopefully it’ll be reliable. I will run it a bit over winter and then see about rehoming it in the spring.

 

Also it has a thrusting middle-management vinyl roof so will be ideal transport for my posh counry-house hotel work executive offsite meeting thing in December. Happy days.

[Matty]

Fit

[DSdriver]

Still looks handsome... the vox that is

[Angrydicky]

So glad you got it sorted out in the end, Martin. So annoying as it never missed a beat while I had it.

 

As you say, it is a very handsome beast indeed.

[Skizzer]

So glad you got it sorted out in the end, Martin. So annoying as it never missed a beat while I had it.

 

As you say, it is a very handsome beast indeed.

Exactly - I’ve always been embarrassed that it was spot on when I collected it from you and that I have been a very poor custodian of it (although at least it’s been safely dry stored and moved about fairly regularly).

 

I still don’t know exactly what was wrong; I think it just went a bit out of tune and various people’s attempts to fix it (mostly mine) made it worse. I have now reversed all those and swapped my crappy Intermotor new bits for decent new bits and somewhere in there was the answer.

 

Edit: I may even decide to keep it, of course.

[dollywobbler]

Funnily enough, my video on this car has recently attracted a fair wave of new comments, and quite a few people said it was the first one they watched. Glad it's fighting fit again!

[Squire_Dawson]

What a remarkably clean car. Doesn't look more than a year old. Enjoy it!

[mercrocker]

Good news.....This is a lovely car.

[ProgRocker]

Victorious!

[lisbon_road]

Good car.  I'd be tempted to fit the electronic ignition and bypass the ballast resistor.  An overdrive box is a really good fitment on these too, as they aren't that refined at speed and keeping the revs down helps.

 

How far do we go with mods?  This is such a rare car now, and another one of these is I think up for sale with some rather unsubtle modifications.  

 

The Getrag five speed box is a direct top.  The standard box on these to my mind is also very much part of the car in my opinion anyway.

[RobT]

Good news! What decent new parts did you use? I try to keep some NOS ignition bits for the Metro, but it'd be useful to know a good brand of new stuff.

[Guest Hooli]

What a lovely thing & even better now it works.

[Skizzer]

What a remarkably clean car. Doesn't look more than a year old. Enjoy it!

It’s a credit to its former owners, not least AngryDicky.  All I’ve done is wash it a couple of times and store it indoors.

 

Good car.  I'd be tempted to fit the electronic ignition and bypass the ballast resistor.  An overdrive box is a really good fitment on these too, as they aren't that refined at speed and keeping the revs down helps.

 

How far do we go with mods?  This is such a rare car now, and another one of these is I think up for sale with some rather unsubtle modifications.  

 

The Getrag five speed box is a direct top.  The standard box on these to my mind is also very much part of the car in my opinion anyway.

I have an overdrive box from a Ventora that came with it, along with accompanying shorter propshaft. This was a period option, though weirdly not for the 1975 model year. Depending on priorities with other cars, I may fit it over the winter. I think it’s a perfectly reasonable upgrade that doesn’t really count as compromising the originality.

[Skizzer]

Good news! What decent new parts did you use? I try to keep some NOS ignition bits for the Metro, but it'd be useful to know a good brand of new stuff.

Powerspark coil (MUCH heavier than Intermotor) and HT leads, Champion plugs; the condenser is still a cheapie but I’ll get a better one from Distributor Doctor.

[Angrydicky]

What a remarkably clean car. Doesn't look more than a year old. Enjoy it!

It was ziebarted from new which helped! I did a small amount of welding on the front inner wing and A post and replaced the offside front wing and front bumper which had been damaged in an accident. Some filler had been dislodged from the wheelarch in this sideswipe incident (prior to my ownership). I bare metalled a good rustfree wing and had it painted and blended into the door by a bodyshop. At the same time, he painted the bootlid which had some giffer aerosol repairs, and fitted new pinstripes. The previous owner to me had the entire passenger side done at great expense. It is still a very sound original car, IIRC the original owner kept it until his death in 2009.

 

I paid about £250 for the o/d gearbox and prop, but never got around to fitting them. It actually came from an FE VX4/90 on the Isle of Lewis! I shied away due to the massive weight of the gearbox. I did have a new genuine Borg & Beck clutch kit fitted during my ownership, which can't have done more than 3k or so. And a new clutch cable (what a horrible job that was!)

[Squire_Dawson]

I know you look after your cars well and put a lot of time and effort into them. Having seen one or two of them (Maestro and Somerset) they are a credit to your hard work sir.

[wuvvum]

Great to see this up and running again.  I was properly impressed by it when I drove it.

[Spottedlaurel]

Great to see this up and running again.  I was properly impressed by it when I drove it.

 

Ditto. One of my favourite non-Japanese '70s cars.

 

Glad to hear it's running well, fingers crossed it stays that way.

[trigger]

I'm pleased to see this back up and running again, i thoroughly enjoyed driving it when i had my go at that meet we had in that pikey filled car park in Essex.

[Spottedlaurel]

Period line-up by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

[Skizzer]

It’s basically now got a whole new ignition system so hopefully it’ll be reliable.

Guess what.

 

I took the freshly fixed Vauxhall round to the petrol station for half a tank of fresh petrol and some yummy Tetraboost yesterday, and it rewarded me by overheating.

 

 

I think the temperature sender may be down as it was still showing cold on the gauge and the fan didn’t kick in, so I parked it back in the shed and left it to cool down. The coolant isn’t a pretty colour and needs a flush and refill anyway.

 

Went back to it today (day off) and discovered the main problem:

 

 

That pipe insert into the inlet manifold (just behind the wire) is toast, and the hose has just fallen off it. Here’s an even uglier angle:

 

 

I’ve left it soaking in penetrating oil at the moment in the ridiculously naive hope it unscrews and has a part number on it. Otherwise I’m looking for a new inlet manifold - no luck so far on that.

 

Shame because oherwise it’s running great...

[Guest Hooli]

Bugger.