Project The Mighty Dacia - 1310 estate - Cat's tales

[dollywobbler]

Ah, now I see the damage. That could cause running issues. See? It really is the Mighty Dacia. It somehow got us home like that.

[Six-cylinder]

 It really is the Mighty Dacia. 

 

That's not the latest information, please edit to "The Very Acceptable Dacia"!

[dozeydustman]

Sounds like a locking pin or something else in the shaft has gone awol or is incorrectly shimmed. I can't find any data on what the end float should be on one of these, nor for a R12 though most cars seem to be 0.2-0.5mm.

 

I know some older cars had fibre shims and washers in them which regularly need a drop or 2 of oil to keep everything as it should be. Is the Cléon engine one of these?

[Sigmund Fraud]

I suspect it's a Romanian copy of a Ducellier. If there's enough play for the rotor arm to cause such damage to the cap, I would expect ignition timing to also be all over the shop.

 

My recommendation would be to follow the time-honoured Dacia owners' tradition of replacing faulty Romanian parts with French ones.

[catsinthewelder]

I've put a new dizzy cap and arm into my ebay basket but will pop into my local factors tomorrow to see if they have them in stock so Ian can drive it at the weekend.  It's less than a tenner posted for the pair so I can afford to change them every 3000 miles until we find a new dizzy.

[Eddie Honda]

Here's a pair of Ducellier dizzy caps that are nearly the same:

 

DSCF7833 by E Honda, on Flickr

 

Now I just need to find my notes about the differences between them.

[Eddie Honda]

Still haven't found the notes yet.

 

Here's an example. QH list a XD140, but under the cross references is D806 & D807. I remember this bugging me at the time. If one part covers both, then why do Valeo make two different ones?? Surely there must be a reason? (It's not just the hole either)

[Eddie Honda]

Depth of the flange here in this shot (and corresponding locating lug).

 

DSCF7835 by E Honda, on Flickr

[dollywobbler]

Yeah, one of the problems here will be that in France, they probably fitted several types of nearly-identical distributor. The French like to do that, making it a sod to get the right bits. I shall keep fingers crossed!

 

Is the rotor arm a simple push fit or a screw fit?

[Wingz123]

I'm struggling to see what's wrong. We really should have bought some spares in Romania shouldn't we? Or France...

Can previous owner ship any over to you?

[dollywobbler]

Can previous owner ship any over to you?

 

Given the nightmare we've had paying for the car, I'm not sure that's a road I want to go down.

[Junkman]

Sounds like a locking pin or something else in the shaft has gone awol or is incorrectly shimmed. I can't find any data on what the end float should be on one of these, nor for a R12 though most cars seem to be 0.2-0.5mm.

 

I know some older cars had fibre shims and washers in them which regularly need a drop or 2 of oil to keep everything as it should be. Is the Cléon engine one of these?

 

Not sure about fibre shims, but my dizzy needs oiling with every oil change says the book.

[Eddie Honda]

Oiling. That'll be the felt pad under the rotor and over the screw:

 

DSCF7816 by E Honda, on Flickr

 

I only recall metal washers/shims:

 

DSCF7818 by E Honda, on Flickr

 

and another:

 

p3290001.jpg by E Honda, on Flickr

 

At most of them sit under the advance mechanism between it and the bottom of the housing and maybe one or nothing between the housing stem and the drive dog. If there were too many under the advance, the rotor would be too high. If too few, the mechanism would scrape. I would expect little to no up/down movement.

 

2014-10-03_23-12-29_207 by E Honda, on Flickr

 

Under the coil of wire on the drive dog (yeah, I know it's not a Cleon version, but it's the same in the drive dog retention aspect):

Ducellier case 1 by E Honda, on Flickr

 

is the pin holding it on.

Ducellier 4411B GA3 GD4 by E Honda, on Flickr

 

Back to caps, this body has a shallow notch at the 10 o'clock position, for a shallow notch cap.

 

DSCF7838 by E Honda, on Flickr

 

Shallow notch cap:

DSCF7852 by E Honda, on Flickr

 

Thinking about it, I think the later type was the deep notch cap, because these covers only work with deep notch casings...

 

DSCF7886 by E Honda, on Flickr

 

and here's a typical exploded view:

 

[mat_the_cat]

Here's an example. QH list a XD140, but under the cross references is D806 & D807. I remember this bugging me at the time. If one part covers both, then why do Valeo make two different ones?? Surely there must be a reason? (It's not just the hole either)

 

Because in the aftermarket, near enough is often deemed good enough...

It my be that there is a design which works acceptably for both cross references, halving the tooling costs. Or it may just be that with a simple tweak to the design, one part can replace both with no effect of performance. Who knows?

[hairnet]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RENAULT-5-1-4-8V-87000M/123276252172

 

worth a shot for parts seeing as its in the same country >?>??

[Talbot]

There is about 5mm of vertical play in the dizzy drive which has worn most of the cap away.

somewhere in the back of my mind I am remembering stripping and rebuilding a distributor that had a similar problem. The endfloat of the shaft was so much the cam lobe for the points could move out of position enough for the points to "go all wonky" (technical term) not to operate properly.

 

Eventually this was traced to two fibre washers that were supposed to be part of the shimming arrangement (one under the advance weight plate, the other external to the dizzy) which had completely and utterly disintegrated and disappeared. Replaced with steel washers and it was fine.

 

Could you be looking at something that has a part so badly disintegrated that there's no evidence of it ever having been fitted? Would explain the endfloat.

[catsinthewelder]

Right,  I collected a new Dizzy cap today (Dacia 1310 was listed in the book!) but unfortunately they sent the wrong rotor arm.

 

Never mind, fitted it anyway and it still doesn't work.  I've also realised that the green LED on the little red box of ignition isn't lit.  That can't be a good sign can it?

 

FFS

[catsinthewelder]

This claims it fits the 1310, worth a go?

[SiC]

What sort of little box of ignition are we talking about?

[dollywobbler]

I'd proceed with caution. I've had someone offer to dig out a distributor from his parts stash if we can identify what we've got at the moment. 

[catsinthewelder]

What sort of little box of ignition are we talking about?

 

 

 

Ref photos of Dizzy for Ian

 

[SiC]

Looks like an ignition amplifier (like sparkrite units). Someone maybe able to confirm but that doesn't look very stock. LED may come on when the points are closed/open. Is this a traditional points based ignition or does it have an electronic pickup inside?

 

Can it be bypassed easily?

[dollywobbler]

Looks like an ignition amplifier (like sparkrite units). Someone maybe able to confirm but that doesn't look very stock. LED may come on when the points are closed/open. Is this a traditional points based ignition or does it have an electronic pickup inside?

 

Can it be bypassed easily?

 

It's quite odd. There's half a contact breaker, which strikes what looks like a sensor. No condenser. So, it's sort-of like a points-assisted ignition.

 

Cheers for the pics Rich. I'll pass them on.

[catsinthewelder]

Thinking back I'm fairly sure I've seen a 2010 date on the red box. Would a sparkrite box wire into its place?

[dollywobbler]

Can you do a shot of the dizzy internals? Minus that black cover.

[dollywobbler]

Oh and how damaged was the old rotor arm? I can't remember looking at it on Saturday.

[catsinthewelder]

I'm not sure if there is anything wrong with the old rotor arm but ordered one as I generally replace them as a pair.

 

Little red box is now showing it's LED but car still won't start. Not starting isn't necessarily anything new wrong though. It's getting late so I only have it 3 try.

[dollywobbler]

I'm not sure if there is anything wrong with the old rotor arm but ordered one as I generally replace them as a pair.IMG_20180730_203120523.jpg

 

Little red box is now showing it's LED but car still won't start. Not starting isn't necessarily anything new wrong though. It's getting late so I only have it 3 try.

 

Worth giving it a good prime for one last try?

[Felly Magic]

I keep wondering that would a dizzy from an Ovlovolov 340 1.4 fit? 

[dollywobbler]

I keep wondering that would a dizzy from an Ovlovolov 340 1.4 fit? 

 

Should do. I'm chatting with a Renault specialist in Worthing at the moment. Now he's got pics of exactly what we've got, he's going to have a root around in his 'distributor' box tomorrow and see if he has anything suitable. Much as I hate traditional points and condenser, as long as it works for a trip to Gaydon and back, I'll be happy enough!

 

Of course, as Cats hints, there are other issues at play here as well - still running too rich and fouling the plugs and possibly a weak fuel pump as well. Amazing it got us home really!