Morris 1300

[jonny69]

Yeah, also going to add that modern condensers are rubbish. You’ll struggle to find a good one now. I had a string of bad new ones in my Anglia and eventually called it a day and fitted electronic ignition.

Of course, you’re then reliant on unknown Chinese electronics instead of shonky but mostly predictable Lucas parts - so I’d recommend keep a second set in the glove box. 

1 hour ago, lisbon_road said:

One question I've never got an answer to.  I hear a lot about modern available condensers being rubbish and have wondered if you could use a bigger capacitor like say a motor start and run cap mounted outside the distributor.  They are readily available and decent quality.  

Just thinking like.

You can mount the condenser outside the distributor. There’s no real functional need to have it inside other than convenience. I used to have the one on my Pop up by the coil on the bulkhead. The OEM one was an obscure size and I couldn’t find one, so I just used a similar one. 

You can’t use a conventional capacitor. It works the same but it can’t handle the duty cycle the ignition ones are designed to do. It’s usually due to that reason that the new condensers don’t last long. They’re just poorly made capacitors mounted badly inside the can. They measure up ok on the bench when they’re doing nothing at room temperature, but they break down rapidly when subjected to heavy duty cycle and heat. 

[Isaac Hunt]

Fekkin typical Ennit, you buy a new condenser to attempt to sort rough running and end up introducing more problems due to shite parts.  

[RobT]

I've a hunch BeEP is right re the float bowl, so I'll take a look tomorrow.  Even though I've cleaned it out before more crap could have got through.  Which is ominous as it denotes fuel tank cleaning may have to happen.

As for points and condensers, to be honest I've never had a problem with them in the Metro, but that hardly does any miles.  @SiC if you wouldn't mind getting me one of the Moss ones though that'd be great.

[SiC]

50 minutes ago, RobT said:

I've a hunch BeEP is right re the float bowl, so I'll take a look tomorrow.  Even though I've cleaned it out before more crap could have got through.  Which is ominous as it denotes fuel tank cleaning may have to happen.

If you have an in-line fuel filter then any detritous should be caught in that, not the float bowl though? 

My money is still on the condenser + burnt points. Or I'd put a small stake on the fuel pump points too.

If inline fuel filter is full of crud, a stake would go on the pump/fuel line filled up with crap. Hopefully not that, as dropping the tank is a bit of a PIA to do. 

[lisbon_road]

Pick up on a few points.  For RayMK and RobT, I know some systems are ok and I can believe that the points in the Metro are quite good.  But you have to see just how utter rubbish the distributors in Vivas were.  They'd often have huge play in the shafts out of the box, and setting the points was always a sort of juggling act to try and get an acceptable average.  They were simply cr@p.  Companies sold modified Lucas distributors to fit them, or Bosch distributors from later Vivas or Chevettes could be fitted.  It is staggering to think that most of these cars were not running right most of the time.  I had an old system called a Mobelec Magnum (great name) which lasted years and now use a Luminition which is old enough that the quality is probably ok.  But the idea of having a set of points and condenser in the glove box is a good one of course.

Getting off topic but the Viva used a cold start ignition system which maintained voltage across the coil on starting by having a resistor in series with the coil when running.  This added to the current crossing the points most of the time.  Best bet was to dump that straight away and just use a normal 12 volt coil off something like Rob's 1100.

[RobT]

If it does turn out to be points and condenser, I think I will give the electronic option a go.  So far I've been fortunate with my breakdown locations, but that was half a day spent yesterday trying to fix it and then getting recovered.  I was only five miles from home too.

[lisbon_road]

1 hour ago, RobT said:

 So far I've been fortunate with my breakdown locations

Rob, you know how to make my day. 

[somewhatfoolish]

12 hours ago, jonny69 said:

You can’t use a conventional capacitor. It works the same but it can’t handle the duty cycle the ignition ones are designed to do. It’s usually due to that reason that the new condensers don’t last long. They’re just poorly made capacitors mounted badly inside the can. They measure up ok on the bench when they’re doing nothing at room temperature, but they break down rapidly when subjected to heavy duty cycle and heat. 

I think we've covered this ground before and someone suggested DIYing better quality condensers with high performance capacitors, tantalum perhaps; shouldn't too hard to hide one inside the metal can from a cheapnese condenser o' cheese to keep the cosmetics.

[phil_lihp]

Best of luck Rob, I bought new points and condenser for the Princess but as it's running well on the old ones I've cleaned the points and left them in place, I have a feeling from various reports on here that the new ones won't be as durable.

[RobT]

T'was the points.  I also changed the spark plugs and the old ones were black after I cleaned them 100 miles ago, so it'll need tweaking.  There's now a slight hesitation accelerating in second, so may just switch to electronic ignition if it's going to keep buggering about.  But I can sense I'm starting to get too picky about things...

I also changed the clutch hose and the pedal is marginally lighter, so that'll have to do.

[BeEP]

Glad you've got it running again!

[dozeydustman]

Bit of an off the wall suggestion but possibly worth checking. My second Scimitar had its original distributor with points and condensor, it was always losing timing, the points and condensor didn’t actually fail. Would lose power then gain power or just cut out at random every now and then and the static timing would be out by a tiny amount enough to spark at the wrong time. The shaft of the distributor had a tiny amount of play in it, fitted a breakerless electronic kit in there, never had an issue again. Eventually swapped it for the good distributor from my first scimitar after we broke it up.

Could also be a lead breaking down, coil failing or sucking up gunge from the fuel tank.

[Vince70]

I don’t know how true it is but years ago I worked with a bloke who had an old A series Mini which he bought off a dealer and the car would break down after about a half hour drive.

The dealer tried everything to get the car running properly but to no avail and in the end gave my workmate most of his money back for the car and said keep it as he didn’t want to see it in the workshop again.

Apparently someone he knew had similar symptoms with his car and  it was the wires  being the wrong way round on the coil and so it would break down once the coil got hot and then ran okay once the coil cooled back down.

He told me he swapped the wires around and it never let him down again but he might of been pulling my leg.

[RobT]

Worth a shot, as this is still buggering me about.  If it's not the coil connections I may just go with electronic ignition and be done with it.

[Tickman]

With the Minor I was having problems with running consistently, I got so pissed off I bought one of the simonbbc distributors to rule out wear in the whole assembly, I wish I had done it much sooner. Ran nicer and seemed to pick up better too.

 

[BeEP]

I've only had a coil fail once (on an A40 farina), but it did give the symptoms of being fine when cold then increasingly spluttery and dying when hot.  Took me a while to work it out as I kept assuming condenser or fuel related,  Eventually I put my hand on it, and removed it again very quickly!  Not sure swapped wires would cause the same, but no harm trying.  Or just try another coil if you have one.

[RobT]

The coil is a new Powerspark one, but I've got a spare so will give it a go.  For some reason I bought two last month...and it's possible I've put the wires on incorrectly because idiot.

[RobT]

7 hours ago, Tickman said:

With the Minor I was having problems with running consistently, I got so pissed off I bought one of the simonbbc distributors to rule out wear in the whole assembly, I wish I had done it much sooner. Ran nicer and seemed to pick up better too.

 

Thanks, I might end up doing that too!

[Tickman]

My logic* was if the distributor had done the 168,000 miles the car had done it was probably worn so not worth just fitting the ignition module. 

It also was not expensive

[SiC]

At a risk of being a doomsayer on all aftermarket bits, I was warned about those distributors! I did ignore the warnings and lobbed one on my MGB as a short term fix. Ran fine for a good 800 miles and then it started to backfire. Put a old genuine Lucas one back on and it ran smooth with more power. 

Went to Distributor Doctor to enquire rebuilding my original. He wanted iirc £350 to rebuild and warned that he doesn't rebuild those new ones you can buy as the tolerances are too slack to be able to get original Lucas parts to reliably work.  

So I guess if you do lob one on, expect it to become a consumable. 

[wuvvum]

15 hours ago, Vince70 said:

I don’t know how true it is but years ago I worked with a bloke who had an old A series Mini which he bought off a dealer and the car would break down after about a half hour drive.

The dealer tried everything to get the car running properly but to no avail and in the end gave my workmate most of his money back for the car and said keep it as he didn’t want to see it in the workshop again.

Apparently someone he knew had similar symptoms with his car and  it was the wires  being the wrong way round on the coil and so it would break down once the coil got hot and then ran okay once the coil cooled back down.

He told me he swapped the wires around and it never let him down again but he might of been pulling my leg.

That is a thing - one of my Alfasuds had exactly that problem, it was fine for running about locally but conked out halfway through a classic car run and the coil was too hot to touch.  Waited for it to cool down, swapped the wires round and it was OK.  Although the coil did die completely a couple of months later so I don't think the episode did it any good...

[MrBiscuits]

15 hours ago, Vince70 said:

I don’t know how true it is but years ago I worked with a bloke who had an old A series Mini which he bought off a dealer and the car would break down after about a half hour drive.

The dealer tried everything to get the car running properly but to no avail and in the end gave my workmate most of his money back for the car and said keep it as he didn’t want to see it in the workshop again.

Apparently someone he knew had similar symptoms with his car and  it was the wires  being the wrong way round on the coil and so it would break down once the coil got hot and then ran okay once the coil cooled back down.

He told me he swapped the wires around and it never let him down again but he might of been pulling my leg.

Could also be the wrong wire rather than wrong way round. I had the same issue myself after a mini engine swap. Some minis (mine was an A+ but possibly earlier ones were the same) use a ballasted coil that runs at a lower voltage. There's no separate resistor but the low tension feed is a special high resistance wire. It just looks like a normal wire and helpfully the loom also has a normal 12v feed too.

If you connect the normal feed to a ballasted coil it will run fine - great in fact with a huge spark, until the coil overheats. Then it's dead until the coil cools down. I guess eventually the coil's killed but I spotted my mistake before that.

If there's two low tension feeds in the loom it's worth swapping them.

[MrBiscuits]

Thinking about it, another possibility is a ballasted coil incorrectly fitted to a 'normal' ignition system.

If you check the resistance across the LT terminals, a normal 12v coil should have 3 ohms. A ballasted one would be around 1.5 ohms

[SiC]

Coil polarity is a thing still. Funnily enough I was playing with a coil on the bench the other day. The correct polarity definitely gives a better crack of the spark. Likewise without a capacitor (condenser), the contacts have a lot more arcing.

[RobT]

All good information, thanks all.  £40 for a new distributor does seem rather cheap.

[RobT]

As posted in News 24, a NOS condenser seems to have cured a few ills and it's running lovely.  So I thought I'd risk taking it to my trusted tyre fitting place today, which is a 12 mile round trip.

Levitating Morris.

I think buying the cheapest tyres I could find was the right decision.  £27 each Rotalla Setulas in 155/80 12 flavour.  £168 in total including fitting.  I'll be driving this in all weathers (OK maybe not the depths of winter) but the ancient crossplies were just bloody awful.  I had a moment in wet weather yesterday, so anything will be better tbh.

Nice bit of tyre wall.  The wheels won't be painted.

So far I've done 200 miles in this, with two FTPs, which have hopefully been resolved with the new condenser.

Next job is checking the rear brakes, something I've been putting off based on the war SiC had removing the drums on his.  And a new clutch is probably on the list, as there's a bit of judder on the odd occasion, but it's far from being fucked.  I hope.

[RobT]

Some blurry strip speedo action.  Photo taken on a deserted industrial estate to prevent my collar being felt.

[320touring]

My uncle used to have a commer van with a strip Speedo and a rover V8.. could get it to loop round:)

 

Time for a metro turbo setup!

[BeEP]

Nice to see the tip of your speedo ribbon is still red.  Most go orange/yellow over time as it's the only bit permanently exposed to the light; I suspect your car has spent most of its life safely cocooned in a dark garage!

[anonymous user]

59 minutes ago, BeEP said:

I suspect your car has spent most of its life safely cocooned in a dark garage!

Or driven at night, by a vampire