Saturday, October 16, 2010

Got Lotus spark, but no Lotus love

Last week I checked for spark without turning on the ignition. The first thing to do today was to repeat that test, the right way. Still no spark.

Lotus101016-01 Lotus101016-02 Lotus101016-03

Not surprised, I jacked up the rear end, blocked the LH wheel and with the trans in forth and the spark plugs out I turned the RH wheel until #1 was coming up on compression and the flywheel mark was just past the 10 deg mark, around 8 or 9. Then I pulled out the distributor cap and rotor. Both looked perfect. I pulled the distributor and noticed right away that the point gap was nearly gone. Not from badly worn points, but more likely from wear on the plastic cam follower.

After resetting the point gap to .015 in. I installed the distributor, but during an initial position setup discovered the points were not making good contact -- my multi-meter beeper was reluctant to beep as the points closed. Out came the distributor. Removed the points and sanded with #180 wet/dry even though the points were not burned or pitted. After that they were fine.

I had a hard time getting the distributor body oriented the way I wanted. I ended up with the ignition lead way up near the intake runner, where it usually is around two o'clock. I recall having a similar problem the last time I did this, coming out of restoration, and that the cause was I was on the wrong side of the cam lobe. At this point I was running out of time, so I tested for spark and had it, nice and strong. I figured either it would run or it wouldn't, so I put in the new NKG spark plugs I picked up at Larry's and gave it a go. Not a sputter. Net week begins with checking the static timing setup procedure.

No comments: